STAT wins yearslong legal battle against Purdue Pharma 

A federal court in Kentucky has ruled that secret records detailing Purdue Pharma’s marketing of the painkiller OxyContin must be made public. It’s the culmination of a legal fight that began in March 2016, when STAT filed a motion to unseal the documents.

Beyond the aggressive tact Purdue used to market OxyContin, approved in 1995 and hailed as a blockbuster pain drug, the company is seen as having done irreparable damage to a nationwide culture of opioid prescription, in which pain was treated as a “fifth vital sign” and physicians were taught that patients with “legitimate” physical pain could not develop drug addictions. The documents are likely to shed light on the thoughts and strategies of the Sackler family, Purdue’s notorious owners. The trove of documents includes a 2015 deposition given by Dr. Richard Sackler, who has been quoted in the past as shifting blame toward individuals who developed addictions after being prescribed OxyContin. Read more here. 

And in other opioid news, a court in Oklahoma has ruled that the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson must pay the state $572 million for its role in the addiction and overdose crisis there. The ruling could prove to be a harbinger of future rulings in the more than 2,000 unresolved lawsuits across the country filed against drug distributors and manufacturers by cities, states, and Native American tribes. More here.