A Ninth Circuit panel hinted Thursday that a prior ruling holding USA Water Polo liable for failing to protect young athletes from concussions could open the door to reviving a class action over painkillers pushed on hurt football players.
Read moreA group of Tennessee prosecutors suing pharmaceutical companies for the damages opioid use has inflicted on their communities said Tuesday the Tennessee Supreme Court has refused to hear the companies’ bid to be dismissed as defendants, which will allow the case to move forward after two years of attempted delays.
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A San Francisco-based health information technology company will pay $145 million to resolve criminal and civil charges that it helped set up an electronic health records system that encouraged physicians to prescribe opioids to patients who might not need them, federal prosecutors in Vermont said Monday.
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The founder of an Arizona pharmaceutical company was sentenced to 5½ years in prison Thursday for orchestrating a bribery and kickback scheme prosecutors said helped fuel the opioid crisis.
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Alarmed by a deadly new twist in the nation’s drug addiction crisis, the government will allow states to use federal money earmarked for the opioid epidemic to help growing numbers of people struggling with meth and cocaine.
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Oklahoma officials sued opioid distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen in state court Monday, claiming the companies failed to stop and report suspiciously large orders of opioid prescription drugs that were diverted and killed scores of addicts.
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The state of Oklahoma will receive $8.75 million from two pharmaceutical companies in a deal announced Friday that will end legal action the state was considering against the opioid manufacturers.
Read moreDoctors and other health care practitioners who write prescriptions bear ultimate responsibility for improper distribution of opioids to patients, not pharmacists who are obliged to fill those prescriptions, a series of pharmacy chains claim in federal court.
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The new year will bring new fees for some owners of electric vehicles, as an increasing number of states seek to plug in to fresh revenue sources to offset forgone gas taxes. In Hawaii, the charge will be $50. In Kansas, $100. In Alabama and Ohio, $200.
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The judge overseeing the bankruptcy of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma warns that real-life court cases don’t unfold like “Perry Mason.” But he’s afraid this one might come to resemble “Dr. Strangelove.”
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Australia’s drug regulator has fined a pharmaceutical company owned by the billionaire Sackler family over what it dubbed misleading advertising for one of its opioid painkillers, as the country grapples with surging rates of opioid prescriptions and related deaths.
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Doctor in some addiction clinics are working to spread a philosophy called “medication first,” in which opioid addicts get the drug buprenorphine first, without requirements for counseling, abstinence or even a commitment to recovery.
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Michigan sued a group of opioid distributors Tuesday under a law used to go after illegal drug traffickers, becoming the first state in the nation to treat the pharmaceutical companies like drug dealers in court.
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The gleaming white booth towered over the medical conference in Italy in October, advertising a new brand of antidote for opioid overdoses. “Be prepared. Get naloxone. Save a life,” the slogan on its walls said.
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Reports rolled in with escalating urgency — pills seized by the truckload, pills swallowed by schoolchildren, pills in the pockets of dead terrorists.
Read moreA former anesthesiologist was properly convicted of manslaughter for prescribing opioids to two patients who overdosed on the drugs, a New York appeals court ruled. Other patients and their families testified that his pain management clinic was essentially a “pill mill” where he excessively prescribed addictive drugs and ignored patients’ abuse of the meds.
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More Americans are dying while still in the prime working years of the lives, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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Scientists continue to debate on whether cannabis can serve as a meaningful opioid substitute, with two conflicting studies published Tuesday further fanning the flames of contention.
Read moreThe Oklahoma judge that awarded the state $572 million from Johnson & Johnson in the first opioid crisis lawsuit to go to trial formally reduced his damages award by $107 million Friday, admitting to a three-digit calculation error.
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A Chinese court sentenced nine fentanyl traffickers on Thursday in the culmination of a rare collaboration between Chinese and U.S. law enforcement to crack down on global networks that manufacture and distribute lethal synthetic opioids.
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