The US state of Massachusetts on Thursday, May 6, attacked Publicis Health, which it accuses of having contributed to the opioid crisis by helping the Purdue laboratory to push doctors to prescribe its pain-relieving drug OxyContin. “Responsibility for the opioid crisis cuts across the industry, from Purdue and the Sackler family to consultants and partners like McKinsey and PublicisMassachusetts Attorney Maura Healey said in a statement. In the lawsuit filed in Suffolk County Court, the prosecutor says that, through dozens of contracts between 2010 and 2019, worth more of $ 50 million, “Publicis has engaged in a myriad of unfair and deceptive strategies that have weighed on the prescription of OxyContin across the country, including in Massachusetts.” Among these “strategies“, the prosecutor cites actions aimed at”fight hesitation“prescribing doctors, to push doctors to prescribe OxyContin rather than opiates at lower doses, and for longer durations – all elements that increase the risk of dependence. Massachusetts asks the court to find that Publicis Health at “created a public nuisance“and order the company to pay damages”compensatory“of an unspecified amount.”All of our work was completely legal“, reacted a spokesperson for Publicis Health in a statement, and affirming that the alleged facts fell within the scope of the prescription.”Publicis Health was acting only as an advertising agency“and did that”execute Purdue’s advertising plan and purchase advertising space“, he added, accusing the prosecutor of having taken statements”out of context“.
US states have attacked in recent years not only Purdue, which filed for bankruptcy in 2019, but many companies they believe are co-responsible for the devastation caused by OxyContin. In February, the States thus obtained from the consulting firm McKinsey to pay $ 573 million to settle the legal proceedings launched against him for having contributed to the opioid crisis. Since Monday, May 3, three major American distributors of opioid drugs appear for the first time in federal court in West Virginia, accused of having flooded this state, among the poorest in the United States, with pain pills, causing pain. tens of thousands of overdoses. Before the pandemic, the opioid crisis and the surge in overdoses it has caused – with an estimated 500,000 deaths in the United States since 1999 – seemed to be leveling off. But the death toll from overdoses started to rise again in 2020, reaching a record high of more than 87,000 deaths from September 2019 to September 2020, according to federal figures released in April.
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