Attorney General Lynn Fitch on Thursday announced a $350 million state settlement with Publicis Health to resolve an investigation into the global marketing communications company's role in the opioid prescription crisis. Mississippi will receive $2.9 million from the settlement.
“Since 1999, opioids have claimed the lives of one million people. They are loving mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors,” General Fitch said. “Today’s settlement is an important step in holding corporations accountable for their role in the destruction of these lives, families, and communities. In this crisis, we work together to empower, educate, and support. We must prevent further senseless deaths and end this deadly epidemic once and for all.”
As part of the terms of the settlement, Publicis will publish on its public website thousands of internal documents detailing its work for opioid companies such as Purdue Pharma and its efforts to produce opioid-based Schedule II or other Schedule II drugs. stop accepting related client work;
Thursday's filing in Hinds County First Judicial District Chancery Court and courts around the country alleges Publicis' activities endangered by helping Purdue Pharma and other opioid manufacturers market and sell opioids. It describes how you contributed. Court documents also describe how Publicis acts as Purdue's agent of record for all private-label opioid drugs, including OxyContin, and communicates within its private health office between patients and health care providers. It details how the company developed a sales strategy that relied on collecting data from recorded conversations. The company contributed to Purdue's decision to market OxyContin to providers of patient electronic health records.
According to the Mississippi Prescription Monitoring Program, managed by the Board of Pharmacy, 78.4% of the 358 suspected overdose deaths reported to the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics in 2022 were opioid-related. These deaths, and the impact on the thousands of people battling opioid addiction, result in significant costs to health care, child welfare, and criminal justice systems. The damage to our state is more important than dollars, with opioid addiction, drug use, and overdose deaths tearing families apart, damaging relationships, and devastating communities.
Thursday's filing is the latest action taken by General Fitch to combat the opioid crisis and hold accountable those responsible for creating and fueling the crisis. Now, she's bringing her One Pill Can Kill initiative to Alcorn State University, delivering 1,000 fentanyl hazard prevention kits to campus and dispensing naloxone (also known by the brand name Narcan) to more than 100 students. We plan to train them on the proper use of. ) and fentanyl test strips. Learn more about One Pill Can Kill here.
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