“The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick and the needy, and the handicapped.” – Hubert Humphrey
passionate pachyderms
Pharmacist Steve steve@steveariens.com 502.938.2414
Psilocybin, the drug compound found in “magic mushrooms,” reduced symptoms of treatment-resistant depression in a randomized phase IIB study, though was associated with some serious adverse events (AEs), drugmaker Compass Pathways announced by press release.Addiction tops the unfavorable side effects. Help 4 Addiction is easier if you are willing to get over it and focus on the benefits.
In the trial of more than 200 patients with treatment-resistant therapy who had stopped taking antidepressants before enrollment, a 25-mg dose of COMP360 psilocybin with ongoing psychological support led to a -6.6-point difference on the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) total score at week 3 versus a group who received a 1-mg dose of the product (P<0.001), and the difference remained significant through week 6.
A third arm of the study tested a 10-mg dose of psilocybin, but this showed no statistically significant difference over the 1-mg dose at week 3 (-2.5 points P=0.184). Results of the trial have not been peer-reviewed.
In the 25-mg group, 29.1% of patients achieved a remission (≥50% decrease in MADRS total score from baseline) at week 3, as compared to 7.6% in the 1-mg group. By week 12, these rates were 24.1% and 10.1%, respectively.
“Remission rates appear to be higher than seen in traditional medication studies,” noted principal investigator David Hellerstein, MD, of Columbia University in New York City, in a statement. “These findings suggest that COMP360 psilocybin therapy could play a major role in psychiatric care, if approved.”
During an investor call where Compass leadership presented the findings, Guy Goodwin, MD, the company’s chief medical officer and a professor emeritus of psychiatry at Oxford University, said the results in the 25-mg group “show evidence for durability of response” for psilocybin therapy.
Of potential concern, however, were higher rates of treatment-emergent serious adverse events (AEs) with the higher psilocybin doses. These serious AEs — which include suicidal behavior, suicidal ideation, and intentional self-injury — occurred in five patients in the 25-mg group (6.3%), in six patients in the 10-mg group (8.0%), as compared to one patient in the 1-mg group (1.3%).
Matthew Johnson, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and psychedelics at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, told MedPage Today that the early data look encouraging. Yet without more detailed information, questions remain about the nature of the trial’s AEs, he said.
“Working with depressed people, these symptoms come with the territory. Suicidal behavior can encompass a broad range, from fleeting thoughts to more serious planning,” Johnson said. “It is possible that an effective session might put people in a more difficult place psychologically as they’re processing the experience, much like processing trauma. The treatment itself can bring up very difficult emotions and might potentially make things worse in the short-term.”
Because details of the patients’ reported suicidality weren’t explored further, it’s hard to assess in full, he explained.
Lars Christian Wilde, Compass’ co-founder and president, said during the investor call that the differences in serious AE frequency were not statistically significant between dosing groups. Suicidal thoughts, self-injury, and even suicidal behaviors are also common among those suffering from treatment-resistant depression, he noted.
The study, the largest to test the compound to date according to the U.K.-based company, included 233 patients with treatment-resistant depression. Patients were randomized 1:1:1 to COMP360 psilocybin at the three doses along with ongoing psychological support from therapists. Participants were recruited from 10 countries across North America and Europe. Notably, 94% of patients had no prior experience with psilocybin.
Overall, 179 patients reported experiencing at least one treatment-emergent AE, with more than 90% falling in the mild-to-moderate category (83.5% in the 25-mg group, 74.7% in the 10-mg group, and 72.2% in the 1-mg group), the company noted.
Researchers from the company are planning to start a phase III trial next year, which will likely focus on the 25-mg dose. The leadership team also announced that the company will be embarking on a phase II trial of psilocybin therapy in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.
It’s not only essential to take the correct medicine for your condition at the right time of day. You also have to ensure you respect the dosage your physician recommends. But that’s impossible to do if the meds you received contain a higher strength than what is advertised on the packaging. That’s precisely what happened with 500mg Methocarbamol bottles from one lot, as they actually contain 750mg tablets. If you happen to take this pain medicine from Bryant Ranch Prepack, you should ensure your bottle doesn’t come from the recalled lot before continuing your treatment.
Methocarbamol 500mg recall
Bryant Ranch Prepack issued a voluntary recall for one lot of Methocarbamol 500mg tablets, the company said in a press release available from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company informs that the bottles labeled “Methocarbamol 500mg Tablets” actually contain “Methocarbamol 750mg Tablets.” That’s a higher dosage than your doctor might have instructed you to take.
The pain medication can help treat acute, painful musculoskeletal conditions. It’s usually combined with other therapies, including rest and physical therapy.
Taking the 750mg dose instead of the 500mg tablets could result in Excessive Central Nervous System depression. As a result, you might experience various symptoms that might include nausea, sedation, fainting, falls, seizures, coma, and death. If you think you’ve experienced symptoms, you should contact your doctor. But Bryant Ranch Prepack says it has not received reports of adverse events so far.
How to identify the pain medicine subject to recall
If you’ve purchased prescriptions for Methocarbamol 500mg Tablets recently, you should ensure your bottle doesn’t contain the following identification:
The affected Methocarbamol 500mg lots include the following Lot Number 163935/ Exp. Date 10/22. The product can be identified by red and white label with a yellow border at the top and bottom of the label, top of the label reads ‘Packaged by Bryant Ranch Prepack,’ labels are pictured [at this link].
The pain medicine bottles come in “counts of 30 (NDC:7133517952), 60 (NDC: 7133517954), and 90 (NDC:7133517957) pills.”
What you should do
Bryant Ranch Prepack has already started notifying distributors and customers to arrange the return of the recalled pain medicine. Distributors and physicians who received pain meds from the recalled lot should stop distributing them and return the product to Byrant.
Consumers who have bottles of Methocarbamol 500mg Tablets from the affected lot should stop using them immediately, Bryant Ranch Prepack says. You can return them and contact your physician. If you’re unsure whether the pain medicine you’ve just received is part of the recall, you should contact your doctor.
The company provides contact information for the recall in the official announcement at this link. That’s where you’ll also find details on how to report adverse reactions and quality concerns to the FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program.
While you’re checking your Methocarbamol bottles, you should also ensure that the blood pressure medicine you take is correct. Two such drugs are part of different FDA recalls.
Just as a reminder to everyone, this has been the federal DEA law since the Control Substance Act was signed into law in 1970. The DEA usually goes after the person/entity that has given/shared/sold the controlled substance to someone else… They seldom go after the person receiving the controlled substances and consider the person/entity “distributing” the controlled substances the “DEALER”
When Martin Njoku saw opioid addiction devastate his West Virginia community, he felt compelled to help. This was the place he’d called home for three decades, where he’d raised his two girls and turned his dream of owning a pharmacy into reality.
In 2016, after flooding displaced people in nearby counties, Njoku began dispensing buprenorphine to them and to local customers at his Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy in Fayette County.
Buprenorphine, a controlled substance sold under the brand names Subutex and Suboxone, is a medication to treat opioid use disorder. Research shows it halves the risk of overdose and doubles people’s chances of entering long-term recovery.
“I thought I was doing what was righteous for people who have illness,” Njoku said.
But a few years later, the Drug Enforcement Administration raided Njoku’s pharmacy and accused the facility of contributing to the opioid epidemic rather than curbing it. The agency revoked the pharmacy’s registration to dispense controlled substances, claiming it posed an “imminent danger to public health and safety.” Although two judges separately ruled in Njoku’s favor, the DEA’s actions effectively shuttered his business.
“I lost everything that I worked for,” Njoku said.
Lawyers, pharmacists, harm-reduction advocates and a former DEA employee say Njoku’s case is emblematic of the DEA’s aggressive stance on buprenorphine. An opioid itself, the medication can be misused, so the DEA works to limit its diversion to the streets. But many say the agency’s policies are exacerbating the opioid epidemic by scaring pharmacies away from dispensing this medication when it’s desperately needed.
Drug overdose deaths hit record highs last year, and despite medical experts considering medications like buprenorphine the gold standard, less than 20% of people with opioid use disorder typically receive them. The federal government has taken steps to increase the number of clinicians who prescribe buprenorphine, but many patients struggle to get those prescriptions filled. A recent study found that 1 in 5 U.S. pharmacies do not provide buprenorphine.
“Pharmacies are terrified they’re going to lose their DEA registration and go out of business,” said Charles “Buck” Selby, a former inspector and chief compliance officer for the West Virginia Board of Pharmacy, who retired in 2018.
The ramifications can be particularly acute in rural areas, where a dearth of addiction treatment providers, lack of transportation and stigma against these medications already create barriers. If pharmacies decline to provide buprenorphine too, patients will have few options left, Selby said.
The DEA did not respond to requests for comment.
Like many other prescription drugs, buprenorphine can be found illegally on the street. There are unscrupulous doctors who hand out prescriptions and pharmacists who fill them. Subutex, which consists of buprenorphine alone, is easier to misuse and typically has higher street value than Suboxone, a combination of buprenorphine and the overdose-reversal drug naloxone.
Dr. Nathan Mullins, addiction medicine fellowship director at Mountain Area Health Education Center in North Carolina, says switching the medications of patients recovering from opioid use disorder can cause needless anxiety. (Courtney Ingram)
In the case against Njoku’s pharmacy, an assistant U.S. attorney explained that the DEA “got slapped hard for being asleep at the switch as the opioid crisis ramped up. … They’re trying to make sure that Subutex doesn’t become the next problem,” according to court transcripts.
Buprenorphine is less likely to cause overdoses than other opioids because its effects taper off at higher doses, said Dr. Aaron Wohl, medical director of the Florida-based coalition Project Opioid.
In Njoku’s case, the DEA said in court documents that several “red flags” had suggested the pharmacy’s actions were irresponsible. First, many of the prescriptions it filled were for Subutex instead of Suboxone. Patients also traveled – sometimes out of state – to get prescriptions, drove long distances within West Virginia to reach Njoku’s pharmacy, and often paid in cash.
In traditional prescription drug cases, these are all markers of trouble. But — as Njoku’s lawyers argued and two judges later agreed — they can also reflect the difficulty of getting addiction treatment, which is sometimes more challenging than obtaining illicit drugs.
“The practical reality and context of West Virginia turn these additional flags from red to yellow,” U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin wrote in his opinion. Patients may go out of their way for the drug because there aren’t enough nearby doctors who prescribe it or pharmacies that stock it, he wrote. They might pay cash because they’re uninsured or Medicaid won’t cover prescriptions written by an out-of-network doctor. And they might prefer Subutex because it’s often cheaper than Suboxone.
By 2020, Goodwin and an administrative law judge at the DEA had both ruled in Njoku’s favor. But several insurers and drug suppliers had already stopped doing business with him. Njoku closed the pharmacy in April 2021.
Across the country, when a pharmacy stops providing buprenorphine, the ripple effects can be far-reaching.
Trish Mashburn works at two independent pharmacies in western North Carolina. When a nearby pharmacy stopped dispensing buprenorphine, she began getting five calls a day from prospective customers trying to get their prescriptions filled, she said. Although both her employers stock buprenorphine, they order only a set amount, so Mashburn often must turn patients away.
Research in North Carolina and Kentucky has found that many pharmacists worry that ordering more buprenorphine will trigger a DEA investigation. The DEA does not specify thresholds for controlled substances, but it requires wholesalers to flag suspicious orders. In turn, wholesalers limit how much a pharmacy can buy or create algorithms to detect orders that exceed projected need.
They base these limits, in part, on the DEA’s enforcement actions, said Larry Cote, a former DEA attorney who now advises wholesalers, pharmacies and other clients on regulatory compliance. Since pharmacies are not typically privy to how these limits are set, many simply order small batches of buprenorphine out of caution.
That creates a “prescribing cliff,” said Bayla Ostrach, lead author of a paper studying this issue in North Carolina. Doctors may prescribe buprenorphine to more patients, but pharmacies order enough for only a certain number of customers. Since many people stay on buprenorphine for years, once the pharmacy hits its self-established quota, it may rarely have openings for new patients.
Research shows buprenorphine, a medication that treats opioid use disorder, halves the risk of overdose and doubles people’s chances of long-term recovery. Dr. Aaron Wohl, medical director of Project Opioid, says buprenorphine is also less likely to cause overdoses because its effects taper off at higher doses. (Aaron Wohl)
Many pharmacists fear ordering too much buprenorphine will trigger a DEA investigation, research in Kentucky and North Carolina has found. That creates a “prescribing cliff,” says Bayla Ostrach, who researches substance use disorder treatment and health policy. Doctors might prescribe more, but if pharmacies won’t fill the prescription, patients can’t get their medication. (Ainsley Bryce)
A Lee County, Florida, man thought he was one of the lucky ones. James, 34, had been filling his Subutex prescription at the supermarket chain Publix for seven years. In that time, he held steady jobs and cared for his wife and children. (James asked KHN to withhold his last name so future employers wouldn’t judge him on his addiction history.)
Then, last year, James said, he went to get his prescription refilled and was told Publix no longer stocks Subutex — the medication the DEA considered a “red flag” in Njoku’s case.
Publix did not respond to requests for comment.
A decade ago, when James began the medication, he chose Subutex because it was cheaper than Suboxone. Today, most insurance plans cover Suboxone, and the price difference has narrowed somewhat.
James was not eager to change to a potentially pricier medication. And he worried a different drug might disrupt his recovery — a common sentiment among patients in long-term recovery, said Dr. Nathan Mullins, director of addiction medicine fellowship at Mountain Area Health Education Center in North Carolina. Changing their medication is unnecessary and can cause needless anxiety, Mullins said.
Luckily, James found an independent pharmacy that provides Subutex. It’s more expensive, since the new place doesn’t accept his insurance, he said. He pays about $40 a week, compared with $40 a month previously.
But James said it’s worth it.
“I’ve been in 10 rehabs and a million detoxes, and the only thing that has worked for me was one sublingual tablet,” James said. Along with therapy, “this saved my life.”
More than 500 physicians and public health professionals in the U.S. have signed a letter demanding that Facebook divulge its data around COVID-19 disinformation.
The letter, which was initially shared exclusively with USA Today and then posted on the Doctors for America website, called the lack of transparency “deadly.”
“The recent Facebook whistleblower disclosures have confirmed what many of us have suspected for a long time: that Facebook has repeatedly stonewalled the public, lawmakers and academics over the last 18 months despite having had ‘deep knowledge’ about the scope and nature of COVID-19 and vaccine disinformation across its apps,” the letter stated.
“So many deaths could have been prevented, and we must act with haste to prevent more, particularly with vaccines becoming imminently available for young children,” it continued. “We simply cannot afford another deadly round of COVID and vaccine misinformation.”
The top three signatures were from Céline Gounder, MD, of NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City; Kavita Patel, MD, of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.; and Craig Spencer, MD, MPH, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.
Doctors for America said it “mobilizes doctors and medical students to be leaders in putting patients over politics on the pressing issues of the day to improve the health of our patients, communities, and nation.”
In a Twitter post about the letter, Gounder noted that healthcare professionals and public health officials “have been fighting multiple battles & multiple fronts over the course of the pandemic. Social media is yet another battleground.”
She asked why Facebook has yet to de-platform members of the “Disinformation Dozen,” referring to the report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which found that 12 anti-vaxxers are responsible for some two-thirds of anti-vaccine content on social media.
Some physicians made that list, including Joseph Mercola, DO; Sherri Tenpenny, DO; and Christiane Northrup, MD.
“These people are still out there, spreading dangerous disinformation,” Gounder tweeted.
The letter noted that on July 15, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, issued a federal advisory about the public health threat posed by misinformation.
Facebook must take “immediate, urgent action to stop the deadly spread of COVID-19 disinformation on its platforms,” the letter stressed. “Facebook must disclose all data about the scope, reach, and content of this disinformation and its impact on users for evaluation by independent public health researchers.”
The letter stated that data already released by Facebook have “fallen far short of what the public deserves to know.”
“For Facebook to achieve actual transparency, it must go beyond providing select data points to the public and provide meaningful data from its vast data trove to the public health community,” the letter continued. “This will assist experts in understanding both how disinformation has rampantly spread on the platform and how to overcome the skepticism about vaccines that has arisen from it.”
In an emailed statement to USA Today, a spokesperson for Meta (the new parent organization for Facebook) said that the company is working to distribute “reliable information” about COVID-19, and noted that vaccine hesitancy among Facebook users in the U.S. has fallen by 50% since January.
“Tracking and sharing data on the prevalence of misinformation is difficult for any subject, but especially for COVID-19 where the facts and guidance about the pandemic are updated over time. This is why no major tech company releases this data,” the spokesperson told USA Today. “Despite all of these complications, we’ve removed more than 20 million pieces of content that violate our COVID misinformation policies, permanently banned thousands of repeat offenders from our services, and connected more than 2 billion people to reliable information about COVID-19 and vaccines.”
“We will continue our dedication to ensuring billions of people are getting reliable information about COVID-19 on our services,” the Meta spokesperson said.
A California mom is accusing a CVS Pharmacy of giving her 16-year-old son the COVID-19 vaccine without her consent, according to a local report.
Amanda Arroyo told KOVR that her son made an appointment online to get the vaccine at a CVS Pharmacy in Davis, California.
This is a CVS Pharmacy sign is shown in Mount Lebanon, Pa., on Monday May 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
“He was like, ‘My arm hurts,’ and I said, ‘What happened?’” Arroyo told the station. “And he was like, ‘I had my COVID shot,’ and I was like ‘Wait, what?’”
FILE: A healthcare worker fills a syringe with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. (AP)
Arroyo said the pharmacist told her she was only trying to keep the community safe by vaccinating as many people as possible. She now wants the pharmacist to be held responsible and worries the same thing might happen to other parents.
“There is a law in place, there are procedures that are not being followed,” Arroyo said. “Really concerned at the fact that I don’t know what this is going to do to him.”
FILE: Vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine sit in a cooler before being thawed at a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination site in the Bronx borough of New York on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
Under California law, minors need permission from their parents to receive a vaccine.
CVS told Fox Business it is “aware of the incident” and its staff has spoken with Arroyo.
“As part of the online registration process, patients are asked to attest that all information provided during appointment set up is truthful and accurate,” the company said in a statement. “This includes acknowledgment that parental consent is needed if the patient is a minor. We’re committed to complying with all vaccination regulations.”
On Monday, the Biden administration kicked off “a nationwide effort” to encourage schools, parents, and guardians to vaccinate children against COVID-19, saying “vaccination is the best tool we have” to ensure that students are safe, and that schools remain open for in-person learning.
I watched “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution” a few weeks ago. It wasn’t my first time watching the film about the growth of the disability rights movement, but it was the first time I reflected on its emphasis on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. It was then I realized that the Americans with Disabilities Act — often credited as the staple of disability rights — likely wouldn’t have been as expensive, or even enacted to begin with, without Section 504, which prevents disability discrimination.
But here we are, two weeks later, pharmaceutical giant CVS is challenging the monumental policy. In CVS v Doe, five individuals living with HIV are suing the company for requiring those who need “specialty medications” to receive them by mail, rather than their local pharmacy. The group argues that the policy effectively prevents them from receiving the care they need and represents discrimination based on their disability.
As a disabled person, this case, the thought that a corporation that ranked fourth in the 2021 Fortune 500 is challenging disability rights, human rights, my rights is unfathomable. It’s scary. The fact is: CVS has tremendous market power, and I wouldn’t consider this a guarantee that the system will side with disability rights. It might, but it’s not automatic.
But as the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health notes, the corporation’s argument and case as a whole rests on one word: neutral. The case is, essentially, “is a case neutral if it disproportionately impacts people with disabilities?” The decision has drastic implications for disability rights because since the onset of the disability rights movement, advocates have been fighting against policies that seem neutral but exclude disabled people. It’s the backbone of the disability rights movement.
Using this rationale, a company could argue that it doesn’t need to have a ramp or elevator because only disabled people need it. It would mean a company could get away with everything as long as their lawyers could argue the policy is neutral.
This case, filed over equal access to medicine and pharmacies, is so much more than a disabled person not being able to physically retrieve medication. It’s about access. It’s about the denial of access and accommodations. It’s about whether the courts — the country — will make inaccessibility and disability discrimination legally acceptable and undo years and decades of progress. It’s about the decades of the disability rights movement. It’s about the work of Judy Heumann and Bobbi Linn. It’s about recognizing the critical moment we are in, the critical moment this could be. A single ruling could set things so far back. It’s about recognizing Section 504 and disability rights are directly under attack, and the only question is: what side will our country take?
Thoughtlessness is another — a nicer — way of saying ignorance. But when I say ignorance, I’m not talking about malicious intent, exactly. Ignorance isn’t always somebody saying “I don’t want a wheelchair user accessing my store”; it’s sometimes a honest mistake. I have learned it is the story of the disability experience; unless they or their family or friends are impacted by disabilities, people without disabilities don’t think about disability. And corporations and businesses are even worse because they associate accessibility and other disability accommodations with extraneous costs. And unlike small businesses, there are many decision-makers, so the chances of one or two board members impacted by accessibility actually swinging the group’s decision are slim.
Regardless of the situation, big or small, there’s no excuse for ignorance and businesses need to be held accountable. I have never lived without the ADA, but I know for a fact that some public places still aren’t accessible, and corporations like CVS are demeaning disability rights, even though it’s been over three decades since the legislation was enacted.
I can’t believe it’s 2021 and I am writing about why discrimination against disabled people is not a neutral act. It disgusts me, but I question if I am really surprised. Something like this can only hide in the gray area for so long before showing its true colors, and I see society’s historic indifference toward disability rights shining through. But it won’t be long before the scales tip one way or the other, and it is at that moment when we will either take a small step forward or an incomprehensible step back.
Oh wow. Another company that got 100 on the Disability Equality Index is violating the rights of disabled people. Sounds like someone needs a big red asterisk next to their name.
It has always been my understanding that people on Medicaid is generally allowed to have a house, car and $2000 dollars…
Has anyone heard of people on Medicaid that have been “begging for money” from others… using www.gofundme.com and www.venmo.com
I guess you could call this “virtual panhandling” ?
The rules appear to vary from state to state on/if money raised via these web sites could be – or should be – reported as taxable income
President Biden says that everyone should – PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES !!
I have a pharmacist friend that we exchange emails almost daily and he is head of a state Medicaid dept and he shared with me the following:
he also told me that anyone can contact the Attorney General Fraud Unit. Fraud units who love to go after some of these cases….
But if you know someone, when they are sent to prison, providing for their chronic health care needs are mandated by the 8th Amendment – which prevents cruel and unusual punishment to prisoners.
How do I report suspected Member Fraud? · Submit our online Health First Colorado Member Fraud Form · Call 844-475-0444(for State Relay, call 711) · Send an email .. tohcpf_reportproviderfraud@state.co.us
Search Multiple Engines for Medicaid Fraud Report. Find Information and Results on Info.com. Explore Sources Now. Find Resources & Tips. Fast Results & More.
Just wanted to share my experience to alert and warn my neighbors. I was scammed on the Facebook marketplace, I purchased a electric bike and made payment via PayPal but when the payment was made I found out that it went to some company in China so I wrote to seller that I want to cancel the order but did not received any response so I opened case with PayPal, seller never responded me directly but responded to PayPal in 3 days with a USPS tracking number showing it was delivered to our front door, we have proof ( cameras and USPS informed delivery notification email) that it was never delivered to us , I tried to explain PayPal that how come in this Covid crises I will receive an item from China in 3 days where local deliveries takes weeks to reach the buyer but PayPal refused to investigate and refused to refund me and favored the scammer and closed my case.I have found similar complaint against PayPal on BBB by another customer who was victim of similar scam by a seller on MARKETPLACE and PayPal refused to refund money to that customer too. I really don’t understand how they get fake USPS tracking numbers. Neighbors please be cautious before spending your money and stay away from such scammers. Happy thanksgiving !
Who Owns PayPal?
PayPal was first founded in 1998; it was called Confinity (among its founders was Peter Thiel); later, it merged with X.com, its major competitor, founded by Elon Musk (which would become known for other companies like Tesla and SpaceX). From this merger PayPal was born. In 2002, PayPal was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion. eBay spun-off PayPal in 2015, which would be listed as an independent entity. Today PayPal owns brands like Braintree, Venmo, Xoom, and iZettle.
I anticipated that this ruling would be appealed – mostly because the judge on this case made the decision that the trial would be a “bench trial” …meaning that J&J could not have a jury…the judge was going to judge-jury- executioner. It would seem that J&J was not being provided to have a trial and judged by a jury of their peers… Since this was a Pharma – acting as a wholesaler to the entire pharma providing raw opiate powders. Maybe there was no way to find a jury of J&J peers ?
Would appear to be a definite shift in the “mindset” of many parts of our bureaucracies and judicial systems – away from the idea that we have a real opiate crisis and who – if even one or more entities – is the cause behind it
The ruling of the OK Supreme Court would suggest that the various bureaucracies and law firms behind this law suit tried a VERY LARGE OVER REACH on both the law and the intent of the public nuisance law. Since the law firm(s) involved with this lawsuit were probably working on a contingency fee basis and figured that they would go down the same path as the Tobacco law suit back in the end of the 20th century…. going forward, law firms may have second thoughts about filing more of these sort of lawsuits on a contingency basis, because outcomes have become a lot less predictable.
Opioid public nuisance ruling reversed by Oklahoma Supreme Court on
“We hold the opioid manufacturer’s actions did not create a public nuisance. The district court erred in extending the public nuisance statute to the manufacturing, marketing, and selling of prescription opioids,” the ruling states.
“In reaching this decision, we do not to minimize the severity of the harm that thousands of Oklahoma citizens have suffered because of opioids. However grave the problem of opioid addiction is in Oklahoma, public nuisance law does not provide a remedy for this harm.”
Among named plaintiffs were Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals.
“The district court held J&J liable under Oklahoma’s public nuisance statute for conducting ‘false, misleading, and dangerous marketing campaigns’ about prescription of opioids,” the ruling by the state Supreme Court reads. “The district court ordered that J&J pay $465 million to fund one year of the State’s Abatement Plan, which consisted of the district court appropriating money to 21 government programs for services to combat opioid abuse. The amount of the judgment against J&J was not based on J&J’s percentage of prescription opioids sold. The district court also did not take into consideration or grant J&J a set-off for the settlements the state had entered into with the other opioid manufacturers.
‘Magic Mushrooms’ Get a Win for Depression in Early Trial, Drugmaker Says
