Latest Drugs Headlines
All the headlines from our Drugs Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Study Debunks Theory That Legalized Marijuana Helps Prevent Opioid Deaths
Jun 12 2019 // A new study shoots down the notion that medical marijuana laws can prevent opioid overdose deaths, challenging a favorite talking point of legal pot advocates. Researchers repeated an analysis that sparked excitement years...
Doctor in Oklahoma Trial Says J&J Pushed Opioids Even After Abuse Became Known
Jun 11 2019 // Oklahoma’s star witness told a state judge that Johnson & Johnson pressed doctors to prescribe its painkillers even as the potentially fatal addictive threat posed by the drugs became clear more than a decade...
Massachusetts Construction Industry Confronts Drug Addiction Among Ranks
Jun 11 2019 // Massachusetts construction companies and labor unions held work stoppages at project sites across the state on Wednesday as their industry attempts to confront a high rate of fatal opioid overdoses among its ranks. Robert...
Some Claims of Medical Cannabis Lack Scientific Evidence
Jun 11 2019 // Marijuana has been shown to help ease pain and a few other health problems, yet two-thirds of U.S. states have decided pot should be legal to treat many other conditions with little scientific backing. At least 1.4 million...
Doctors Not to Blame for All Opioid Misuse; Friends, Family Also Played Roles
Jun 7 2019 // In a common narrative of the path to opioid misuse, people become addicted to painkillers after a doctor prescribed them pills to treat an injury and then, later, switch to harder drugs, such as heroin. However,...
Insys Agrees to $225 Million Settlement of U.S. Claims of Illegal Opioid Sales
Jun 6 2019 // Insys Therapeutics Inc., grappling with the prospect of bankruptcy after its founder was convicted on racketeering charges, agreed to pay $225 million to settle U.S. claims that the drug maker illegally sold opioid-based...
Sackler Family Sued Again Over Toll of Prescription Opioids
Jun 3 2019 // New Jersey is suing eight members of the family that founded opioid drug maker Purdue Pharma over the lethal toll of the drugs. The Sackler family wasn’t satisfied with “merely raking in” millions of...
Father Testifies in J&J Opioid Marketing Trial on Death of His College Football Star Son
May 30 2019 // Austin Box was a home-grown football star at the University of Oklahoma in 2010 when back surgery to repair an injury got him started on powerful opioid painkillers that would end his life at 22, his father testified...
Teva to Pay Oklahoma $85 Million to Avoid Trial Over Opioid Marketing
May 27 2019 // Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. agreed to pay $85 million to settle an Oklahoma lawsuit claiming that illegal marketing of its opioid painkillers contributed to a public health crisis in the state. The deal, announced...
Opioid Litigation Tests Public Nuisance Claim Theory
May 27 2019 // Determining who foots the bill for America’s growing opioid epidemic may depend on how well the state of Oklahoma deploys a high-risk legal strategy this week against Johnson & Johnson and Teva Pharmaceutical...
Oklahoma’s Opioid Trial Against Drugmakers J&J, Teva Set to Begin
May 24 2019 // Gail Box vividly remembers the day in May 2011 when she first learned her 22-year-old son Austin, a University of Oklahoma linebacker, was abusing opioid painkillers: It was the day he died of an overdose. In a few months...
Tennessee Joins Federal Lawsuit Against Generic Drug Makers
May 22 2019 // Tennessee has joined a federal lawsuit in Connecticut against 20 generic drug manufacturers, alleging manipulation of prices. State Attorney General Herbert Slatery’s office says in a release that the drugs treat...
Supreme Court Sends Merck Warning Label Case Back to Lower Court
May 21 2019 // The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday gave Merck & Co. a new opportunity to avoid lawsuits accusing the company of failing to properly warn patients of debilitating thigh-bone fractures from taking its osteoporosis drug...
The Impact Of State-Level Legalization of Marijuana on the Insurance Industry
May 20 2019 // The changing legal status of marijuana in the U.S. is prompting insurers to begin offering coverages, despite having extremely limited loss data to inform them. While marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, action...
Maker of OxyContin Gets Hit with Another State Lawsuit
May 16 2019 // The company that makes OxyContin did not stop pitching the powerful opioid painkiller to doctors even when its sales representatives raised concerns that they were prescribing the drug inappropriately, the Pennsylvania...
44 States Sue Drug Maker Teva, Alleging Price Fixing Scheme with 19 Other Firms
May 13 2019 // U.S. states filed a lawsuit accusing Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. of orchestrating a sweeping scheme with 19 other drug companies to inflate drug prices – sometimes by more than 1,000% – and stifle competition...
U.S. to Require Drug Companies to Disclose List Prices in TV Ads
May 9 2019 // The Trump administration on Wednesday said it will require drug makers to disclose the list price of prescription drugs in direct-to-consumer television advertisements, part of the government’s efforts to lower costs...
More States Could Settle Opioid Suits in Wake of West Virginia’s McKesson Deal
May 6 2019 // McKesson Corp.’s settlement of an opioid lawsuit with West Virginia — the state with the highest U.S. rate of drug-overdose deaths — may encourage other states to seek quick cash to cope with the rising...
McKesson to Pay $37M to Resolve West Virginia Opioid Suit
May 6 2019 // Drug distributor McKesson Corp has agreed to pay $37 million to resolve a lawsuit by the state of West Virginia alleging it helped fuel a U.S. opioid epidemic by failing to stop suspicious orders of painkillers by...
Congressional Budget Office Warns of ‘Potentially Disruptive’ Move to ‘Medicare for All’
May 3 2019 // Congressional budget experts said this week that moving to a government-run health care system like “Medicare for All” could be complicated and potentially disruptive for Americans. The report from the...
