Page 120 - Nuisance News Today

Say that they committed no wrongdoing. they say they followed the law. they do not think that the public nuisance claim will hold up. the state says that johnson & johnson created a public nusens, costing the state billions of dollars and devastating thousands of lives. but the biggest sign of the strength of johnson & johnsons case in their opinion is the fact that they decided to go to trial. because two other pharmaceutical companies decided to settle with the state of oklahoma to the tune of...

>> reporter: good morning. we are hours away from hearing that verdict and it will certainly be watched closely in states across the country. nationwide opened crisis claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since 2000. dozens of states moving to hold them responsible but oklahoma is the first to take it to trial. they have squared off against johnson & johnson and jansinging. marketing practices with two of the drugs fueled an opioid epidemic which created a public nuisance, cost the state billio...

For. but -- [ inaudible ] this is a landmark to sue big pharma for the role they played in fuelling the opioid epidemic killing hundreds of thousands of people in the last 20 years and success for the state of oklahoma, the first state to take a big pharmaceutical company to trial making those allegations. they claimed that johnson & johnson had created a public nuisance, one that cost the state billions of dollars and claimed thousands of lives. after eight weeks of testimony and more than a hu...

Or whatever it might be, that is not really because of us and this rulely obviously suggested that is not the case. there was misinformation that was deliberate and it helped fuel this opioid epidemic. i think also if you look at the total economic cost according to the cdc per year of the prescription opioid epidemic it is about $80 billion a year and there is 2,000 cities and counties and states that have filed suit and where this goes from here, i dont know. but it will make a lot of waves th...

>> reporter: wolf, you cannot overstate the significance of it. it appears the state of oklahoma has just written the playbook that dozens of other states could follow in seeking to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for fuelling the opioid epidemic. in court today the judge said that the state had made its case that johnson & johnson had created a public nuisance and the tate argued that the pharmaceutical company cost the state of oklahoma billion dollars, devastating thousands of lives...

This, the fda label clearly set forth the risk of addiction. dont tell me that doctors werent aware of the risk. we take the challenge on, because we believe we are right. what you think is going to happen here? >> while, dana, this is certainly a creative use of the states public nuisance law to address a public health problem. whether or not this rises to the level of being a public nuisance is for the judge to decide. regardless of what the judge decides, there will be an appeal. if the state...

Seen, this is certainly a creative effort by the prosecution, at least, to try to get to the problem of the opioid prop, crisis >> dana: was there a different law, a different avenue they could have used? >> i think that if this fails on a public nuisance theory, they are going to revert back to more traditional court claims, such as negligence. if you compare and contrast with the tobacco issue, consider that tobacco does not have any legitimate medical use. on the other hand, opiates do. they ...

Marketing and promotion of opioids created a nuisance as defined by a finding that those actions compromise the health and safety of thousands of oklahomans. >> so again, that was just moments ago up in norman, oklahoma. this is very substantial ruling because again, the state of the johnson & johnson of using these deceptive marketing practices and pushing doctors to prescribe more opioids while telling patients that the drugs were safe all while the downplaying how addictive these prescription...

Johnso johnson&johnson is denying any responsibility. >> it is interesting. the idea that the company created a nuisance. as we know, opioids have become a serious problem. originally, opioids were marketed as something for acute pain. post surgery. in the late 90s this shifted in a marketing campaign that marketed not acute pain, long-term pain. once they did that. that was one of the factors that led to this addiction problem in the united states. the idea that these were a cure all for lots o...

Has legitimate opportunity. the folks we see so far i dont believe are those people to do so. >> it is interesting. speaking of twitter, i saw this tweet where you wrote, at best, joe walsh is a nuisance. he wont be able to build money, theres nothing about walsh that would attract moderates or gop-leaning independents. >> right. >> who do you think would be the right challenger and do you think bill weld could be a challenger? >> i have a lot of respect for bill weld. someone who has been in th...