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Opioid Manufacturers Class Action Lawsuit Overview:
- Who: Darryl Gebien filed a class action lawsuit against 35 opioid drug manufacturers in Canada.
- Why: Gebien claims drug manufacturers caused a public health crisis by misleading the public and doctors about their opioid drugs, including fentanyl, morphine, and codeine.
- Where: The class action lawsuit was filed in the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench.
Pharmaceutical companies that manufacture, market, distribute, and sell opioids in Canada have contributed to a public health crisis in the country, a new class action lawsuit alleges.
Plaintiff Darryl Gebien claims drug manufacturers failed to warn or educate health professionals and the public about the dangers associated with opioid use.
Gebien is seeking more than $1.1 billion in damages and names 35 separate drug manufacturers in his class action lawsuit, reports CBC News.
Opioid overdoses are estimated to have caused tens of thousands of deaths in Canada in the past two decades, according to the class action lawsuit.
Gebien seeks to represent individuals who have suffered after being prescribed opioid drugs since 1996, with relatives and heirs to qualifying deceased also potentially able to qualify.
Gebien, a former Ontario doctor, claims he developed an opioid addiction and ended up losing his job, medical license, and custody of his children after he was prescribed Percocet following a thumb injury, the lawsuit states.
The former doctor also spent two years in jail after he faced criminal charges related to the trafficking of fentanyl.
Drug manufacturers intentionally misled physicians and health-care practitioners about the safety and efficacy of the opioids, and targeted medical students and family doctors who worked with patients with chronic pain conditions, the class action lawsuit alleges.
Fentanyl, Morphine Listed Among Drugs Contributing to Public Health Crisis
Dozens of opioids, including fentanyl, morphine, methadone, opium, oxycodone, codeine, Percocet, oxymorphone, and hydromorphone are listed in the class action lawsuit as having contributed to the health crisis.
Gebien claims drug manufacturers used sales representatives to meet directly with doctors, who they would then enlist to spread good words about their drugs to other professionals in the field.
Drug manufacturers also created think tanks and patient advocacy groups which were used to push physicians to prescribe opioids for pain treatment, according to the class action lawsuit.
Gebien argues the drug manufacturers knew or should have known that the claims they made about their opioids risks and benefits were not backed by science, reports CBC News.
In the United States, Johnson & Johnson and three of the nation’s largest drug distributors agreed to pay $26 billion in a multi-state settlement to resolve claims they helped fuel a deadly opioid epidemic.
Do you believe opioid drug manufacturers are responsible for a public health crisis? Let us know in the comments!
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20 thoughts onOpioid Manufacturers Misled Public, Doctors, Caused Health Crisis, Class Action Claims
Add me please
I believe I qualify and would like to be contacted pleass
I would like to share my “story” for lack of better words with whomever is or at least he is an leaning towards investigating the opioid epedemic that the pharmacutical industry allegedly has played a significant role in both having positive as well as the magnified negative focal point of along with the questionable prescribing practices by medical professionals and then of course coubtless other be suspect factors all involved in Canada’s longest running higrst mortality rate epedemic in Canadian history and the shocking reality that year after year , be month after month , day after day milions of Canadians choose to completely either ignore out of ignorance the true realities or actually believe the misinformation flooded into our society from almost every segmant of our population as the reality is and the federal government. Is fully aware that opiates today are directly and inditectly th bigest financial influencer of or day to day econmy hundreds of billions of dollars just in Canada alone put some thought into how many areas of our lives it touches ffrom peopke to materioa items to health care , corrections , social problems , unvorrouption etc anyway I’ve had my life systematically drstroyed bybdystems designed to keep your it into a lige long ordeal
Please add me. I have been reliant on opioids for the past 23 years.
Hello, my name is Margaret, and I had suffered an opiate drug overdose approximately 5.5 years ago now which had also caused me to have an anoxic brain injury! I believe that my curiosity to try smoking what I had thought was Heroin only to find out later that it was indeed Fentanyl, is what had caused me to have my overdose! Actually I know this for a fact that it is was Fentanyl that had caused my overdose!! Now, I have no idea if I would even qualify for anything due to the fact that I had willingly tried this drug even if it was only my 1st time and it was only the smallest pinch of an amount, like the size of a pin head of an amount. It had still taken my life, and it had left me with my anoxic brain injury due to me somehow falling and waking up with this huge lump on the back of my head that had taken almost a year to finally go away! Therefore, I’m not exactly sure if I would qualify for this at all, due to the fact that it was basically because of my own doing that , I have been left with this debilitating brain injury, that has left me not being able to gain employment and having to depend on the government for monthly money that is hardly bearable to live on without being homeless and living on the streets or turning to a life of crime and or leading myself down a longer road of addiction and self harm by choosing to use my addiction in full force and eventually it will lead to my death! Because as it stands, the drug Fentanyl is so easily addictive and so easy to pass away on…so if I am not included in this program, then at least, I know that , I had tried, and was denied by a government that is obviously flawed!!
And we trusted doctors who were licensed by government!
We all had no choice but to take doctor’s advice, and then only to take a proscription to get fulfilled and follow their professional advice
We now have the chance to make these firms who laughed all the way to the bank!
Now people will have an honest chance to see Justice made !
No matter the size of settlement, it will be Justice served and a strong message sent out to protect the public as a whole from happening again!
They all in the business will see they are being watched!
I would like to be added to the list PLEASE ‘
I would love to know if I qualify my doctor gave them and told me there was no harm charm they were better for me than other drugs I take fentanyl every day and still on it and I can’t get off of it I’ve tried I’ve got down but I can’t get off of it please let me know if I qualify
Please add me to the list .
I believe I qualify. How do I apply to participate in this class action?
Definitely did not know the risks before I took my prescription opiates. Then to be cut off and put on methadone, has ruined my life
I was prescribed Oxycodone in 2000 to treat chronic pain by my physician, then switched over to methadone for many years after I had major spine surgery due to Degenerative Disc Disease. Surgeons took bone from my hip and re-constructed the C-5 C-6 discs in my spine. After surgery they put me on theses medications for chronic pain which left me to have little quality of life. I would like to know if I qualify to be part of this lawsuit and how to go about being a candidate.