美国国家公共电台 NPR Opioid Litigation Brings Company Secrets Into The Public Eye

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The opioid epidemic¹ claimed 70,000 lives in 2017. To put that in perspective, that is more than the number of people who died annually² at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And the pharmaceutical³ industry is going to spend much of this year answering some hard questions. Many blame pharma for our country's opioid crisis. And this year, big drug makers⁴, as well as pharmacy⁵ chains, are facing more than 1,500 lawsuits⁶ filed by state and local governments. Billions of dollars are at stake, and so are reputations. Johnson & Johnson, Purdue Pharma, CVS - those are just some of the companies targeted in these lawsuits.

Brian Mann from North Country Public Radio has been following these lawsuits for NPR and joins me. Hi, Brian.

BRIAN MANN, BYLINE⁷: Hi, David.

GREENE: I mean, it's really hard to overstate the scope and scale of this crisis.

MANN: Yeah, it's painful. The Centers for Disease Control say there are still more than 100 Americans dying every day from overdoses related to prescription⁸ opioids. It's wrecked⁹ families. It's costing taxpayers¹⁰ tens of billions of dollars a year. So, you know, if companies lose some of these lawsuits, they could wind up paying huge damages.

GREENE: Well, and the drug companies, I mean, they're really paying another price already no matter how these lawsuits end up, right? I mean that there are internal company documents that are being made public, and some of them have been controversial, you've been finding.

MANN: Yeah, that's right. We're seeing internal memos¹¹, some for the first time. Purdue executives, for example, can be seen secretly acknowledging that their prescription opioids were far more addictive¹² and dangerous than they were telling doctors. At the same time, company directives kept pushing sales, pushing the salespeople¹³ incredibly hard to get more opioids into the hands of vulnerable people, including seniors and military veterans.

We've also learned that Purdue Pharma executives developed a secret plan they called Project Tango, which they allegedly hoped might help them profit again from the growing wave of opioid addiction¹⁴. The idea here was to sell addiction treatment services to some of the same people addicted¹⁵ to products like their own OxyContin.

And, David, I want to talk you through some of the voices I've been hearing about all of this. I'm going to start with Joe Rice. He's one of the lead attorneys suing big pharma. And he says it's important the public sees these documents.

JOE RICE: Our next battle is to get the depositions¹⁶ and the documents that are being produced made available to the public instead of being - everything being filed under a confidentiality¹⁷ agreement.

MANN: This approach represents a big shift in the way these lawsuits are being handled. It turns out state and federal governments have actually been taking big pharma to court over the opioid crisis for more than a decade, and they've been winning. In most of those past cases, companies paid fines. But the settlements involved gag orders.

DAVID ARMSTRONG: In Kentucky, Purdue Pharma produced two million pages of documents. And the attorney general, when they settled that case, agreed to destroy them.

MANN: That's David Armstrong, a reporter for ProPublica who's covered the opioid crisis for years, breaking big stories about the industry. The Kentucky case he's talking about was settled four years ago. He says the same thing happened back in 2007 when the Justice Department ended a major criminal case against Purdue.

ARMSTRONG: The way it usually works is when they settle these cases, the language in the settlement requires either that the records be destroyed very quickly after the settlement or that they physically¹⁸ actually return the records to the drug company.

MANN: Which means for more than a decade, no one in the wider public knew how serious the allegations against Purdue and these other drug companies were. But this time, states and cities suing these companies seem eager to sort of pull back the curtain.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

MAURA HEALEY: We've done something that hasn't been done before.

MANN: Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey appeared last month on NPR and WBUR's program On Point. Her office is suing Purdue, and as part of the case, they fought to make all the documents they then covered public, without redactions. And they won earlier this year.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

HEALEY: What Purdue's own documents show is the extent of deception¹⁹ and deceit. So, you know, what is important to me is that the facts come to light, and we get justice and accountability.

MANN: Purdue Pharma declined to speak with NPR. But the drug industry has fought these disclosures at every turn. They describe the information in these documents as proprietary²⁰, basically arguing it's corporate²¹ property. But as more and more information comes out, it's making people angry. New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan blasted industry executives at a hearing last month in Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MAGGIE HASSAN: Companies like Janssen and Purdue Pharma fueled this epidemic, employing deceptive²² and truly unconscionable marketing²³ tactics despite the known risks so you could sell more drugs to maximize your profits.

MANN: Jennifer Taubert heads the Janssen pharmaceutical division of Johnson & Johnson, which makes and sells opioids. Here's how she responded.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JENNIFER TAUBERT: Everything that we have done with our products when we promoted opioid products, which we stopped marketing a long time ago, was very appropriate and responsible.

MANN: But according to the drug company's own documents, firms including Johnson & Johnson pushed unscientific theories about drug addiction. They did so allegedly to convince doctors to prescribe even more opioids after patients showed signs of dependency. David Armstrong, the reporter with ProPublica, says this kind of disclosure is making it harder for the industry to protect its image.

ARMSTRONG: The narrative²⁴ is clearly shifting on this story. People want some sort of reckoning, some sort of accounting²⁵.

MANN: And I should say, David, that we've seen this kind of thing before when tobacco companies were sued back in the 1990s, and the public then learned for the first time about widespread wrongdoing. The difference here is that these drug companies and their researchers have been seen by the public as healers and innovators who can be trusted to make products that help us when we're sick. And now that trust is taking a huge hit.

GREENE: I'm talking to reporter Brian Mann, who's been covering the opioid crisis for NPR. And, Brian, just listening to everything you've said there, it makes me wonder what's next. There's a trial coming up in Oklahoma, right?

MANN: That's right. And attorneys are still fighting over millions of pages of documents. And the people I've spoken to say there could be more smoking guns, more evidence of really bad behavior we don't know about yet. One real possibility, though, is that there could be what's known as a global settlement of these opioid cases, where companies agree to pay billions of dollars. If that happens, David, you know, history could repeat itself. The documents we haven't seen yet telling the full story of this epidemic, they could be destroyed or hidden away.

GREENE: Brian Mann with North Country Public Radio who covers these opioid lawsuits for NPR. Thanks, Brian.

MANN: Thank you, David.

(SOUNDBITE OF SLEEPSTREAM'S "BLUE (ASCENSION)")

1 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

2 annually   

adv.一年一次，每年

参考例句：

• Many migratory birds visit this lake annually.许多候鸟每年到这个湖上作短期逗留。
• They celebrate their wedding anniversary annually.他们每年庆祝一番结婚纪念日。

3 pharmaceutical   

adj.药学的，药物的；药用的，药剂师的

参考例句：

• She has donated money to establish a pharmaceutical laboratory.她捐款成立了一个药剂实验室。
• We are engaged in a legal tussle with a large pharmaceutical company.我们正同一家大制药公司闹法律纠纷。

4 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 pharmacy   

n.药房，药剂学，制药业，配药业，一批备用药品

参考例句：

• She works at the pharmacy.她在药房工作。
• Modern pharmacy has solved the problem of sleeplessness.现代制药学已经解决了失眠问题。

6 lawsuits   

n.诉讼( lawsuit的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Lawsuits involving property rights and farming and grazing rights increased markedly. 涉及财产权，耕作与放牧权的诉讼案件显著地增加。 来自辞典例句
• I've lost and won more lawsuits than any man in England. 全英国的人算我官司打得最多，赢的也多，输的也多。 来自辞典例句

7 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

8 prescription   

n.处方，开药；指示，规定

参考例句：

• The physician made a prescription against sea- sickness for him.医生给他开了个治晕船的药方。
• The drug is available on prescription only.这种药只能凭处方购买。

9 wrecked   

adj.失事的，遇难的

参考例句：

• the hulk of a wrecked ship 遇难轮船的残骸
• the salvage of the wrecked tanker 对失事油轮的打捞

10 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

11 memos   

n.备忘录( memo的名词复数 )；（美）内部通知

参考例句：

• Big shots get their dander up and memos start flying. 大人物们怒火中烧，备忘录四下乱飞。 来自辞典例句
• There was a pile of mail, memos and telephone messages on his desk. 他的办公桌上堆满着信件、备忘录和电话通知。 来自辞典例句

12 addictive   

adj.(吸毒等)使成瘾的，成为习惯的

参考例句：

• The problem with video game is that they're addictive.电子游戏机的问题在于它们会使人上瘾。
• Cigarettes are highly addictive.香烟很容易使人上瘾。

13 salespeople   

n.售货员，店员；售货员( salesperson的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The shop usually employs additional salespeople for the Christmas toy trade. 这家商店通常雇一些临时售货员来做圣诞节玩具生意。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Under our new system, salespeople sit down with each of our dealers. 根据新的制度，销售人员应逐个地同承销商洽商。 来自辞典例句

14 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

15 addicted   

adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的

参考例句：

• He was addicted to heroin at the age of 17.他17岁的时候对海洛因上了瘾。
• She's become addicted to love stories.她迷上了爱情小说。

16 depositions   

沉积（物）( deposition的名词复数 )； （在法庭上的）宣誓作证； 处置； 罢免

参考例句：

• The safety problems are more severe for low-pressure depositions because the processes often use concentrated gases. 对于低压淀积来说安全性问题更为突出，因为这种工艺通常使用高浓度的气体。
• The chief method is to take depositions of parties and witnesses. 主要的方法是录取当事人和证人的宣誓证言。 来自口语例句

17 confidentiality   

n.秘而不宣，保密

参考例句：

• They signed a confidentiality agreement. 他们签署了一份保守机密的协议。
• Cryptography is the foundation of supporting authentication, integrality and confidentiality. 而密码学是支持认证、完整性和机密性机制的基础。

18 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

19 deception   

n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计

参考例句：

• He admitted conspiring to obtain property by deception.他承认曾与人合谋骗取财产。
• He was jailed for two years for fraud and deception.他因为诈骗和欺诈入狱服刑两年。

20 proprietary   

n.所有权，所有的；独占的；业主

参考例句：

• We had to take action to protect the proprietary technology.我们必须采取措施保护专利技术。
• Proprietary right is the foundation of jus rerem.所有权是物权法之根基。

21 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

22 deceptive   

adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• His appearance was deceptive.他的外表带有欺骗性。
• The storyline is deceptively simple.故事情节看似简单，其实不然。

23 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

24 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

25 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。