AG Ferguson files lawsuit against 3 large pharmaceutical distributors
Mar 12, 2019, 1:33 PM | Updated: 2:22 pm
(AP)
(AP)
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit Tuesday against a trio of large pharmaceutical distributors, alleging they flooded the state with drugs and helped create its current opioid epidemic.
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“We are woefully under-resourced when it comes to treatment. The people who are responsible for this epidemic should be paying for it,” Ferguson said in a news release. “We are going to hold these companies accountable and get more money into our communities for treatment.”
The lawsuit — filed in King County Superior Court — alleges that McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., and AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. brought in billions of dollars, negligently shipping large-scale orders of oxycodone, fentanyl, hydrocodone, and more, without concern for those drugs ending up in the hands of addicts and dealers.
The lawsuit also claims that those three companies shipping pills into Washington didn’t flag suspicious drug orders correctly.
“Opioid distributors are legally required to monitor the size and frequency of prescription opioid orders to identify suspicious orders that could be diverted into the illegal drug market. Distributors are required to stop these suspicious shipments and report them,” Ferguson’s office said.
The concern cited in Ferguson’s lawsuit is that those companies failed in their legal duty to root out fake prescriptions that were being diverted to the black market.
A “conservative calculation” from Ferguson’s office estimates that the three drug companies shipped over 250,000 suspicious orders into Washington between 2006 and 2014. A “less conservative calculation” puts that number up close to a million orders.
The three companies named in the lawsuit have each faced charges from DEA in the past for not monitoring and flagging suspicious orders, including a $160 million fine levied against McKesson.
Cardinal Health has been fined five times totaling almost $100 million since 2008. In 2007, AmerisourceBergen’s distributor license was suspended for “failing to adequately monitor and report suspicious orders.”
Additional reporting from KIRO 7 TV and KIRO Radio News Staff
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