Seattle Opioid Litigation
Overview
The City of Seattle has sued the nation's leading manufacturers and wholesale distributors of prescription opioids for their role in causing the opioid crisis impacting the City and its residents. The manufacturers contributed to the crisis by deceptively understating the risks, and overstating the benefits, of their drugs. The wholesale distributors failed to implement required systems to monitor and prevent shipments of prescription opioids from being diverted into illegal distribution channels where they are readily available for misuse and abuse. Through this litigation, Seattle seeks to recover the funds it has spent to combat the opioid crisis, and those that will be required remedy its adverse effects.
Seattle's case has been consolidated with similar lawsuits brought by cities and counties across the country. The pretrial phase of all consolidated cases is being conducted by a federal court in Ohio. If Seattle's lawsuit is not resolved or settled as part of the consolidated proceedings, it will be transferred back to a federal court in Seattle for trial.
This website provides information to the public that explains what this lawsuit is about.
Complaint
- Vivek H. Murthy, Letter from the Surgeon General, August 2016
- In the Matter of Frank D. Li, M.D., Ex Parte Order of Summary Suspension, dated July 14, 2016, at 3.
- In the Matter of the License to Practice as a Physician and Surgeon of Frank D. Li, MD, Statement of Charges, dated July 13, 2016.
- Matrix Global Advisors, LLC, Health Care Costs from Opioid Abuse: A State-by-State Analysis, April 2015
- University of Washington, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute Report, Statewide opiate sales to hospitals and pharmacies
- CDC Report, U.S. County Prescribing Rates, 2011
- CDC Report, U.S. County Prescribing Rates, 2016
- JAMA Psychiatry, The Changing Face of Heroin Use in the United States: A Retrospective Analysis of the Past 50 Years, May 28, 2014.
- University of Washington, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, Drug-caused deaths in King County
- Thomas Catan & Evan Perez, A Pain-Drug Champion Has Second Thoughts, WALL ST. J., Dec. 17, 2012.
- John Fauber, Painkiller boom fueled by networking, MILWAUKEE WISC. J. SENTINEL (Feb. 18, 2012)
- Interview by Paula Moyer with Scott M. Fishman, M.D., Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine, Univ. of Cal., Davis (2005)
- College on Problems of Drug Dependence, Letter to HHS Secretary Price re: medication-assisted treatments for Opioid Use Disorder, May 17, 2017
- Catherine S. Hwang, et al., Prescription Drug Abuse: A National Survey of Primary Care Physicians, 175(2) JAMA INTERN. MED. 302-4 (Dec. 8, 2014)
- FDA Facts: Abuse-Deterrent Opioid
- Press Release, “FDA requests removal of Opana ER for risks related to abuse,” June 8, 2017
- Press Release, “Endo Provides Update On Opana ER,” July 6, 2017
- Cicero, Theodore J., and Matthew S. Ellis, “Abuse-deterrent formulations and the prescription opioid abuse epidemic in the United States: lessons learned from Oxycontin” (2015) 72.5 JAMA Psychiatry 424-430.
- Perrone, Drugmakers push profitable, but unproven, opioid solution, dated Ded. 15, 2016
- Warning Letter from Thomas Abrams, Dir., FDA Div. of Mktg., Adver., & Commc’ns, to Doug Boothe, CEO, Actavis Elizabeth LLC (Feb. 18, 2010
- Attorney General of Washington, Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, Memorandum dated May 12, 2015, re Unprofessional conduct complaint against Dr. Frank D. Li, at 5.
- See Prescription Drug Abuse and Overdose, Public Health Perspective, CDC's Primary Care and Public Health Initiative, Oct. 24, 2012, at 12
- Form 10-K, Quintiles IMS Holdings Inc., filed February 16, 2017
- Form S-1, IMS Health Holdings, Inc., filed Jan. 2, 2014
- U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health
- United States Cong., Senate Caucus on Int’l Drug Control, May 14, 2014, 113th Cong. 2nd sess. (Statement of Dr. Nora Volkow).
- University of Washington, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, online report
- Christopher J. Ruhm, National Bureau of Economic Research, Taking the Measure of a Fatal Drug Epidemic, August 2016, at 25
- University of Washington, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, 2016 Drug Use Trends in King County, Washington, at 11-12
- CDC, Provisional Counts of Overdose Deaths, as of 8/6/2017
- Brad Finegood & Caleb Banta-Green, Heroin & Opiate trends and interventions, 2016 Washington State Interagency Opioid Working Plan, at 11
- University of Washington, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, 2015 Drug Use Trends in King County Washington, dated July 2016, at figure 3a
- King County Mental Health, Chemical Abuse and Dependency Services Division, Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Annual Report, 2015, at 20.
- Washington State Office of Financial Management, Maternal and Newborn Inpatient Stays with a Substance Use or Use-Related Diagnosis, February 2016, at 3
- Heroin and Prescription Opiate Addiction Task Force, Final Report and Recommendations, September 15, 2016, at 3.
- King County Heroin and Opioid Task Force, Heroin and Opioid Trends
- CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain – United States, 2016
- FDA Response to PROP petition
- New York – Purdue Settlement, August 2015
- New York – Endo Settlement, March 2016
City Press Releases