it isn't about if they can get it in a syringe , the manufacture sold the product and as I understand it repeatedly ignored both the government and their own scientific advisers about the danger and the risk of the drug and the way it was being marketed.
they marketed it as I understand as less dangerous and less addictive because it was harder to misuse.
but that turned out to be what sunk them , it was as addictive and there wasn't the place to claim misuse since it couldn't be crushes and snorted or injected and most of the time they were applied by medical staff.
that is what got them the judgment against them.

precisely because they couldn't claim misuse as they could with other narcotic products they painted themselves in a corner.

am I saying I think suing drug companies is a good thing for R&D and future products , not necessarily.

does loosing a large sum of money seem to be the only language they understand , it does, because they have to answer to share holders who will hopefully discourage such practices in the future .

it probably won't change a thing but it was one winnable case in a sea of unwinnable cases surrounding the willful suppression of their own test data that the product was more dangerous than they were marketing.

when you find that your product is dangerous and you tell people it isn't in your marketing suppressing your own findings you become liable.


if an ammunition manufacturer had even 2% of it's ammunition that it knew was defective and would blow up a new rifle engineered to exceed SAAMI specs for the cartridge the company would recall that lot and issue warnings. if they didn't they would be liable for the damages.

if an auto manufacturer knew that 2% of it's cars would burst into flame going down the road under normal driving conditions they would recall that car and replace the problem part . warnings would be issued.

if a manufacturer of a drug patch knows that 2% of all users will become addicted to that substance in a 15 day use period and double that percentage on each additional 15 days of use and they suppress the research and findings and market it as the safer alternative when it isn't , then they are also liable.

no I don't have the numbers form the case I was using that as an example.

This is going to be bad for a generation that can’t eat a peanut without a shot. lol

I think people are responsible for what they choose to put in their bodies. I am fat. I don't blame the people who produce the food I eat, except one, for my obesity. That one is me. I raise, hunt and grow a high percentage of my own food.

Keith

in general, I have little sympathy for people that are addicted.

but i can understand where the drug companies and even doctors may have some responsibility here (not 572M, but some). especially if it can be showed that they were pushing doctors to over prescribe and move product.

last week, my youngest (16) had a minor surgery on an ingrown toenail. doctor gave her an opiod prescription - im thinking 3, maybe 5 - nope, 30 days supply, for an ingrown toenail.

we hung onto them for a couple days, incase there was any pain, and then turned them in to the drug dipsosal at the local sherrifs.

I am all about personal responsibility, but you should have watched the trial. It was on the internet.

Some of the shady moves by the drug maker(s) (and doctors) deserved a consequence at the courthouse. I know the very excellent lawyers on both sides and they really slugged it out. Like it or not, this is how the process works.

And, your CCI analogy doesn't fit.

this is exactly the problem.
I went to the ER a few years ago and wasn't even complaining about the pain , just knew I had an infected bug bite that was getting bad fast , they gave me without asking a 5 day dose of prescription narcotic as I was leaving the ER.

Docs fear patent surveys so they give drugs so they have nothing to complain about.

imagine if your daughter took that the first day and then thought she should just keep using it to keep ahead of the pain , in 30 days there is a significant risk of addiction.

if Bret Farve , Rush Limbaugh and piles of other well known people get addicted , it isn't just weak people.

a lady at our old church , she was a nurse her 19yo son OD on heroine , but started on OXY for a sports injury good student , good athlete , dead a year out of school, street value of oxy is 80 dollars a pill but heroin is much less expensive , people get started on narcotic use typically of oxy from medical use or a party. then when hooked and unable to afford any more at 80 dollars a pill , they are crashing and willing to try heroin.

the number I can't seem to find is how many people take a prescription narcotic doctor prescribed and get addicted , I think it is a alarmingly high number but even if it is 2% that would be hundreds of thousands a year figuring approximately 140 million ER visits in a year , that doesn't even figure in needed surgery , elective surgery and clinic procedures..

if you do a quick search on prescription narcotic recovery addiction treatment you will get pages of clinics and treatment centers that have formed a whole new industry around the recovery from the drug given for pain after surgery.

don't even get me started on Pain clinics , some states like FL and CA have had huge numbers of pain clinics , they have a doctor who will write a script to deal with your pain , not treat your illness , but to treat your pain basically semi legal way to write a lot of narcotic scripts.

if they can tell us that 50% of all first time Heroin users are then addicted and >90% of second time Heroin users are addicted what is the real addiction rate to the prescription use of narcotics?

Blaine, do you see this type of suit being used against gun manufacturers in spite of PLCAA ??

527 is not even 1percent of their gross yearly income....period

Yes the 527 million is not much for a very large corporation, but in English Tort law which is case based law this is a huge, huge deal and why the two other firms settled out of court and now the other big player wants to look at up to 10 billion plus to settle over 2,000 suits. Now that one case is on the books and a decision made all other suits can look to this case and help their cause. Johnson and Johnson may well have been far better off to settle out of court as then there is no case against them or the industry. This decision even if small by many standards may be the land mark case for many companies down the road and especially so that a state or governmental unit took the case and won.

Bryce

One thing to remember is that this 572 million is just the fine for last year. Where do you think this will stop ?

This type of decision will allow governments to bankrupt companies in order to inflate their own treasuries.

Interesting question. It might give "them" some ideas but based on what I know, read and watched the same strategy would seem very square peg-round hole. Everyone knows what can happen when a gun is loaded and a trigger is pulled.

And people don’t know the addiction potential? It’s on the bottle for Pete’s sake.

Why do believe those individuals are not weak?

Bowhunter, sorry your mother is in that situation.
Have you had her try eating cannabis yet Instead
Of opioids? If I remember correctly you were one of
The people who was sternly against it at one point in time.

First, prayers for your Mom.

Next, we have come to put too much faith in others without being as informed as we possibly can from doctors to politicians, group leaders to school administrators.

“We have met the enemy and it is us.”

I agree. If a doctor tries to give me any meds, I ask all kinds of questions and discuss it with him. What are the side effects? Is it addictive? just for starters. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Most people think a doctors word has been passed down from Moses and his stone tablets. It's your health and ultimately your own responsibility to make the decision on what to do. Just because some are not smart enough to ask questions, research and make informed decisions does not mean you should be able to blame the other guy for your own stupidity. I have had to take opioids for pain before. I asked all the questions and used them sparingly. Not a huge deal with an ounce of common sense.

I very much agree with all you have said , a cousins brother inlaw is in similar position to your mothers , back injury in his mid 40s and he is now 60 and dependent on the pain patch , there was a time when he could have realistically recovered from his back injury people who have worse than a few ruptured disks have , but his doctors failed him and he failed him not demanding more for himself but he is the baby of the family and was never one to step up to extra work either now with 2 parents still living in their 90s he will likely die in a few more years he has started loosing toes to diabetes as well not good circulation, not even really the muscle mass or bone density left to try and make any recovery he will likely die in his early 60s very possibly before his father who is still farming.


Hobbie you are right in that too many people are too trusting of government and doctors , they get sold a bad bill of goods regular often because they don't educate themselves or advocate for themselves. they do have the doctors and gov telling them "we" can make the best decisions for you , clearly a lie but one that both sell hard and too many people believe.

very much the enemy is US , and not just people who don't advocate for themselves at the doctor but those who place 101% of the blame on the patient when they were fed bad information buy doctors and drug companies fed lies and the real research was suppressed.


and I do fear new product liability suits and I hope that people of the jury will be able to see the difference between a product like ammunition that the manufacturer warns in great detail is dangerous if misused VS a product that the manufacturer knew was faulty , addictive , harmful if used as recommended , or as exactly instructed and yet the manufacturer had the data form multiple sources and suppressed it and marketed hard without properly stating the known effects.

as long as were on the topic
Tylenol (acetaminophen) doesn't get talked about much
from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16294364
"Analysis of national databases show that acetaminophen-associated overdoses account for about 56,000 emergency room visits and 26,000 hospitalizations yearly. Analysis of national mortality files shows 458 deaths occur each year from acetaminophen-associated overdoses; 100 of these are unintentional. The poison surveillance database showed near-doubling in the number of fatalities associated with acetaminophen from 98 in 1997 to 173 in 2001. AERS data describe a number of possible causes for unintentional acetaminophen-associated overdoses. "

most people would say well they didn't use as directed . did you know that extra strength Tylenol the first instruction is take 2 tablets every 6 hours as needed for pain. but if you don't read further to find out that you must not exceed 6 tablets in 24 hours 24/6=4 and not 3.
so following the first direction without reading any further puts a person into liver damaging OD.

acetaminophen is also in more than 600 products besides Tylenol i can't name 600 medicines or over the counter medicines but I can tell you standing in the grocery store with a sick kid at home 10 minutes before the store closes that it is harder to find a cough or cold medicine that doesn't have acetaminophen and especially in liquid medicines where dosing is by teaspoon the milligrams of acetaminophen are given but the dosing is by weight so it changes. when my kids were under 12 infant Tylenol was a higher considerations of acetaminophen than children's Tylenol the doctor might even give you a proper dose but be carrying the children's dosing info and not the infant that you have in your cabinet.

one of the most common ways to OD on acetaminophen besides combining with another product was to toss back the bottle thinking you got 2 and in fact 3 or more had come out , many counties found this , the US FDA knew this but didn't require the blister pack packaging that puts 1 dose in 1 tray as is required in many places outside the US and at the same time we watch commercials for decades that Tylenol was the safe alternative.

I became aware of the Tylenol issue when one of the doctors I went to church with had a patient of his clinic in the news , a teen girl , she was talking Tylenol and NyQuil for a flu not knowing that they both had acetaminophen https://journaltimes.com/news/local...7982a41-0121-5525-a6ec-88c6e97eecd0.html

this has been well know about for 20 years , yet the warnings do not change on the bottle , a bold warning that this product contains 500MG of acetaminophen per tablet and that in an adult any does beyond 3000mg in a 24 hour period can cause liver damage.

a small concession is that I do now see the brand name Tylenol extra strength in blister packs on the Walmart shelf.

sorry for your loss , it is an absolutely awful way to go , days of organ failure.

my kids have been lectured repeatedly on the dangers of Tylenol and acetaminophen and how awful and painful of a death it is.

I no longer care if people use THC for recreational , there are 2 things that bother me however.

1.sales and distribution , if the security and regulation was as tight as they say it is the mas numbers of THC containing vape pods with manufacturer and bar-code on them wouldn't be turning up at the schools like they are. major issue in southern WI with legalized THC in ILL.

2. if you use THC you shouldn't drive anything for 24 hours . Period DUI here where Both THC and Alcohol is a factor is way up .

I am calling it THC because it isn't even pot it is most popular as a vape juice , the smell of pot lingers and the THC vape juice kids are literally hitting the THC vape in the bathroom between classes or in the parking lot before school and the teachers and principal can't smell it on them like they could when I was in school.