US drugstore chains CVS and Walgreens have announced they have agreed to pay $5 billion each in response to lawsuits related to the opiate crisis.
“We are committed to working with states, municipalities and tribes, and will continue our own important initiatives to help reduce the illegitimate use of prescription opiates”said in a statement Thomas Moriarty, director of policy and general counsel of CVS, saying to himself “ happy to resolve these long-standing complaints”.
CVS, which however clarified that this proposed agreement was not an admission of guilt on its part, undertook to pay 4.9 billion dollars to local communities and 130 million dollars to Native American tribes, particularly affected, over ten years. For its part, Walgreens plans to spread over fifteen years the payment of $4.8 billion to communities and $155 million to Native American tribes. Retail giant Walmart also said it would pay $3 billion to settle lawsuits filed by numerous municipalities, Bloomberg reveals.
The three groups had already been ordered to pay $650 million to Ohio counties. Pharmacy chains’ proposed deal would be the first of its kind, and could be the biggest payout after years of litigation over the pharmaceutical industry’s role in the opioid overdose epidemic .
More than 500,000 dead in twenty years
Several drug manufacturers and distributors have already agreed to tentative settlements to settle the lawsuits. In July, the Israeli laboratory Teva thus announced an agreement in principle to more than 4 billion dollars with plaintiffs. At the beginning of March, Purdue concluded an agreement with several American states proposing to pay up to 6 billion dollars.
In recent years, opiate-related deaths have increased, with the majority involving clandestine derivatives of fentanyl, a powerful painkiller normally prescribed for severe pain.
At the origin of more than 500,000 overdose deaths in twenty years in the United States, the opiate crisis has given rise to a myriad of procedures. In this case, manufacturers of painkillers are accused of having made dependent many of those who have consumed. Most of the deaths were primarily related to prescription drugs. However, when governments, doctors and pharmaceutical companies tightened the criteria for obtaining these treatments, people suffering from opioid addiction turned to heroin, a more lethal drug.