By Sara Randazzo A lawyer for several large California communities accused four drugmakers of causing a deadly wave of opioid addiction with their aggressive marketing of pain pills, while defense attorneys said the firms followed the law, on the opening day of a trial closely watched by the pharmaceutical industry. Without an avalanche of prescription opioids, there wouldn t be an opioid epidemic, said Fidelma Fitzpatrick, a plaintiffs lawyer hired to represent the counties of Los Angeles, Orange and Santa Clara and the city of Oakland. The monthslong trial, being held fully by videoconference and decided solely by a judge, began Monday with opening remarks from Ms. Fitzpatrick and attorneys for the drugmakers being accused of misconduct Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceutical Ltd., Endo International PLC and AbbVie Inc. s Allergan.
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By Sara Randazzo Four drugmakers are slated to go on trial Monday in California over claims they fed the opioid crisis, in a proceeding that could help finalize multibillion-dollar settlements between state and local governments and pharmaceutical companies. The case is just the second to go to trial out of thousands of similar lawsuits accusing the drug industry of fueling an opioid epidemic that has killed nearly 500,000 people since 1999, according to federal data. In the trial set to begin Monday fully by videoconference, four California communities allege that Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceutical Ltd., Allergan and Endo International PLC ran misleading marketing campaigns that played down the risks of opioid addiction to boost sales of powerful prescription painkillers.