State sues Express Scripts, alleging it had role in deadly opioid addiction crisis

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: ABC News/AP

September 27, 2024, 10:31 AM


FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Kentucky's attorney general has sued Express Scripts, claiming the big pharmacy benefit manager was at the center of an opioid dispensing chain that fueled a deadly addiction crisis still haunting his state.

The lawsuit Attorney General Russell Coleman filed this week in state court claims St. Louis-based Express Scripts and its affiliated organizations colluded with opioid manufacturers in deceptive marketing schemes to increase sales of the addictive drugs. The result was an epidemic of "overdose and death caused by an oversupply of opioids flooding communities from powerful corporations who sought to profit at the expense of the public,” the suit says.

Government lawsuits against pharmacy benefit managers are the latest frontier – and maybe the last big one – in years of litigation over the worst drug epidemic the U.S. has ever experienced.

The class of drugs is linked to about 75,000 deaths in the U.S. in the 12 months that ended April 30. Most of the deaths in recent years have been connected to illicit fentanyl and other lab-produced opioids that are the drugs of choice for some users and that are also laced into other illegal drugs. Kentucky has been at the epicenter of the crisis with some of the nation's highest overdose death rates.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/kentucky-sues-express-scripts-alleging-role-deadly-opioid-114278850

[jimfields33]

1. That's great news! Governor did good here.

We must get a handle on the opioid crisis. Should have been solved years ago. At least one governor is taking action. Doctors needs to stop being a pez dispenser. We need government regulation on opioids today. Congress asleep as always.

[Martin68]

2. Express Scripts has been delivering my prescriptions to my mailbox for years. I'm sorry to hear they might have been

caught up in the opioid crisis. But they don't write prescriptions. They deliver them. Isn't it the doctor writing prescriptions that is directly responsible? Also, the health insurance provider must approve prescriptions and pay for them. Don't they have more responsibility than the delivery service? You know, Aetna, Blue Shield/Blue Cross, WellCare, Anthem, etc.

[erronis]

4. Per the filing

“The role of Express Scripts in causing the opioid epidemic has been largely concealed from public view,” the Kentucky lawsuit says. “But it has now become clear that, for no less than the last two decades, Express Scripts has had a key role in facilitating the oversupply of opioids through intentional conduct that disregarded needed safeguards in order to increase the prescribing, dispensing and sales of prescription opioids.”

...

The latest lawsuit claims that Express Scripts failed to report suspicious volumes of opioids flowing into Kentucky. The company also dispensed opioids through mail order pharmacies without effective controls, violating Kentucky and federal law, the suit says.

“Express Scripts and the other pharmacy benefit managers amassed an unprecedented level of power, using it to push opioid pills and conceal unlawful activity," Coleman said Thursday in a statement. "They must be held to account for profiting off Kentucky families’ pain.”

[SupportSanity]

3. K&R

[tonekat]

5. A lot of us who use Express Scripts

Have a duffel bag full of extra medications because they insist on sending 90 days worth at a time.

They're difficult to communicate with and their website stinks.