Dauphin County latest to sue prescription drug makers for opioid crisis
From left, Dauphin County Commissioners George P. Hartwick III, Jeff Haste and Mike Pries talk at a board of commissioners’ meeting about the county’s decision to sue 11 prescription drug manufacturers, as well as three doctors, for what commissioners say are their role in the county’s opioid crisis. (Brett Sholtis/Transforming Health)
Dauphin County has filed suit against three doctors and 11 companies that make drugs like OxyContin and Percocet, saying they share blame for the state’s opioid crisis.
The county follows the lead of at least 16 Pennsylvania counties that have sued drug makers and doctors, including York and Franklin counties. Other counties include Armstrong, Beaver, Cambria, Carbon, Columbia, Delaware, Erie, Fayette, Greene, Lackawanna, Lawrence, Luzerne, Washington and Westmoreland.
County commission chairman Jeff Haste says communities and first responders have stepped up to fight the epidemic, and have spent a lot of money in doing so.
From the summer of 2016 to the summer of 2017, Dauphin County spent more than $19 million in programs to help those affected by addiction. That’s an 860 percent increase from what the county spent five years ago.
Haste says it’s time for the drug companies to “come to the table” as well.
“In medicine, you know one of their cornerstones is ‘first do no harm,” he says. “Well in our mind, some of these manufacturers and doctors did not keep that promise.”
Citing county coroner records, Haste notes 102 people died from overdoses in Dauphin county last year. Research has shown that 80 percent of those who use heroin first become addicted to prescription drugs.
County commissioner George Hartwick says local agencies are running out of money to help the flood of people addicted to opioids. Families have also shouldered a significant financial burden. “And this has affected every family, socioeconomic, race and background, and it’s time that we start fighting this on our toes not on our heels.”
Hartwick says the lawsuit is a way to get multi-billion dollar companies like Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson to pay for some of the damage that he says their drugs caused.
He says the three doctors named in the suit — from Utah and California — are considered to have been instrumental in the proliferation of prescription drugs.
Hartwick notes, the lawsuit doesn’t use taxpayer money. If the county wins the suit, the money will fund things like substance abuse treatment, children and youth programs and the anti-overdose drug naloxone for first responders.
