Page 5 - Rusty Webb News Today

CHARLESTON – As the federal trial against three major opioid distributors continued, data showing pharmacies in Huntington and Cabell County were ordering well above the national average of controlled substances, some ordering more than five times the national average.  Cabell County and the City of Huntington sued the three largest pharmaceutical distribution companies –  AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson Corp. – in 2017 claiming the companies were largely responsible for...

At the height of the opioid crisis, millions upon millions of prescription pain pills flooded into Cabell County in West Virginia. The highly addictive and routinely overprescribed drugs were readily available from pharmacies for years, even as overdoses soared. Their delivery was a reliable, efficient and mechanical process, one that stood in stark contrast to the devastation they caused. This community of some 90,000 on the south bank of the...

CHARLESTON – The program director for Huntingtons Quick Response Team and Cabell EMS employee testified during the first federal trial against the “Big Three” opioid distributors over their role in the drug crisis that Cabell County does have data tying prescription drug use to illegal drug use, and to an "overwhelming" impact of the drug crisis on the community and first responders. Meanwhile, the drug distributors – McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health – sought to put the...

CHARLESTON – During the third day of a federal trial against three major opioid distributors, lawyers for the City of Huntington and Cabell County sought to make the case that the ongoing drug crisis was predictable, as well as tied to the use of prescription painkillers. On May 5, attorneys called David Courtwright, a historian of opioid use and drug policy, as well as Dr. Rahul Gupta, who was West Virginia’s health officer and commissioner of the state’s Bureau for Public Health from 20...

CHARLESTON – A historian of opioid use and drug policy testified, in a federal trial against three major opioid distributors Wednesday, about three principal opioid epidemics that preceded the ongoing crisis. The City of Huntington and Cabell County sued the “Big Three” drug distributors – McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health – in 2017 over their role in the overdose crisis,  after more than 80 million doses of the drugs were sent to the area in an eight-year period. Wedn...

CHARLESTON -- While opioid distributors have argued there is no proof of connection between prescription painkiller use and illicit drug use, an expert in the neurobiology of addiction said, during the second day of a landmark federal trial against those distributors, that people who take prescription painkillers and illicit opioids see the same changes in their brain chemistry. Dr. Corey Waller, an Michigan doctor with expertise in pain and substance use disorder, testified May 4 at the federa...

CHARLESTON – The landmark federal trial against drug distributors McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health over their role in the opioid epidemic began May 3 in Charleston. During Mondays opening arguments for the bench trial at the federal courthouse, attorneys for the plaintiffs – the City of Huntington and the Cabell County Commission – told Senior U.S. District Judge David A. Faber they plan to put forth records and testimony showing the drug distributors knew their role in the...

Trial against opioid distributors begins in WVa Sign In May 3, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, left, and lawyer Rusty Webb enter the Robert C. Byrd United States Courthouse in Charleston, W. Va., Monday, May 3, 2021, for the start of the opioid trial. The trial is set to start in a lawsuit filed in West Virginia accusing three drug distributors of fueling a local opioid epidemic with excessively large shipments of painkillers over several years. (Kenny Kemp/Charleston...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A trial began Monday in a lawsuit filed in West Virginia accusing three drug distributors of fueling a local opioid epidemic with excessively large shipments of painkillers over several years. The city of Huntington and Cabell County filed the lawsuit against drug distributors AmerisourceBergen Drug Co., Cardinal

CHARLESTON – The landmark federal trial against drug distributors McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health over their role in the opioid epidemic began May 3 in Charleston. During Mondays opening arguments for the bench trial at the federal courthouse, attorneys for the plaintiffs – the City of Huntington and the Cabell County Commission – told Senior U.S. District Judge David A. Faber they plan to put forth records and testimony showing the drug distributors knew their role in the...