Defendant opioid firms at the center of a trial in which they are accused of fueling the opioid crisis in Huntington and Cabell County expect to wrap up a month ahead of schedule.
Opioid abatement plan will cost $2.54 billion for Huntington, Cabell experts say
A forensic economist testified Tuesday that a 15-year plan to abate the opioid crisis in Cabell County and the city of Huntington would cost $2.54 billion for governments whose combined annual budgets amount to less than $87 million.
Doctor testifies to seriousness of opioid prescribing as defense takes reins of trial
Distributors accused by Cabell County and Huntington of fueling the opioid crisis presented their first witness at a months-long trial Friday, a pain doctor whose testimony in effect strengthened the plaintiffs’ theory of there being a gateway between prescription opiates and heroin use.
Expert notes red flags in top 1% of Cabell prescribers with data distributors could have accessed
There were 24 doctors who were among the top 1% of opioid prescribers in Cabell County over two decades, but it is the outliers of those outliers who set a dreadful foundation that led to the current opioid crisis, experts say.
Drug company exec says system of checks and balances goes beyond what law requires
Last week, Cabell County attorney Paul T. Farrell Jr. pointed to an internal memo that said a small pharmacy could order 350,000 hydrocodone or oxycodone pills a year, a medium pharmacy, 760,000, and a large pharmacy over 1 million without triggering a suspicious-order alert.
Former DEA agent: Drug wholesalers didn’t report a decade of suspicious pain pill orders
Paul Farrell Jr., Cabell County’s lawyer, argued the drug companies never pulled the fire alarm despite numerous warnings about suspicious orders of oxycodone and hydrocodone.
Drug distributors rest their case in West Virginia opioid trial
After only five days of testimony, lawyers representing the country’s three largest drug distributors rested their defense in the landmark opioid trial taking place in federal court in West Virginia.
David vs. Goliath: Small publisher’s lawyer optimistic in battle against Google and Facebook
“We’re not fighting for the freedom of the press, we’re fighting to keep the press alive.” – Michael Fuller
Gupta, opioid distributors clash during cross-examination
“What we ended up with was a lot of pills sitting in medicine cabinets, and then they ended up in the community.”- Dr. Rahul Gupta, West Virginia’s former state health officer
If Everyone’s Guilty for the Opioid Crisis, Then Nobody Is
The defense seems to be counting on a classic pass-the-buck roundelay, with distributors pointing at doctors pointing at government regulators pointing at the victims, and round and round until everybody’s guilty so nobody is.