this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
311 points (98.4% liked)

News

23301 readers
3408 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Rightwing pressure group Alec seeks to limit public nuisance laws used to take on big business from tobacco to climate crisis

Opioid manufacturers and other major corporations are pushing legislation to strip away state laws that have been used to sue the pharmaceutical industry for hundreds of millions of dollars over the worst drug epidemic in US history.

The influential rightwing pressure group the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which is funded by large US companies, is behind model legislation to greatly restrict lawsuits under state public nuisance laws which are increasingly widely used to hold big business to account.

Public nuisance legislation was central to state lawsuits against the tobacco industry over the damage caused to public health by smoking in the 1990s. The laws are also at the heart of some litigation against fossil fuel companies over the climate crisis and emerging lawsuits against companies that failed to adequately protect workers from Covid.

They have also resulted in drug manufacturers and distributors paying out hundreds of millions of dollars to cities and other authorities for their part in the opioid crisis that has claimed about 800,000 lives. On Friday, the advertising company Publicis Health agreed a $350m settlement with US states that sued the company under public nuisance laws for promoting the high-strength painkiller that kicked off the opioid epidemic, OxyContin, to doctors with false claims about its safety.

But in an attempt to limit public authorities and others harmed by the actions of big business from seeking redress, corporations are using groups such as Alec and the US chamber of commerce to push state legislatures to pass laws to curb similar legal actions in the future.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Itsamelemmy@lemmy.zip 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

As someone that was on oxycodone for years, I understand that things have flipped and a lot of people that they would help can no longer get them. Which sucks, but what you're saying isn't the issue. The issue was the pharmaceutical companies straight up lying to doctors about how addictive their drugs were. Not caring how many people they killed as long as the money flowed in.

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But that shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone - big companies are only about making money, they'd go belly up if they didn't put profit over human lives. It may suck monkey runoff, but it's the truth - and I don't blame big pharma for wanting to rake in as much $$$ as possible.

Maybe they should have been more transparent about the possible addictive qualities of opioids, but in every case where the drugs were abused the doctors have proven that they did not tell the patient to "take as many you want." They did warn the patients about the dangers and also gave them very EXACTING prescriptions to follow, which the patients ignored.

Anything and everything can be dangerous and addicting and harmful when misused. In Utah there's a huge obesity epidemic because food is the one thing people can overindulge in here without condemnation from the mormon church. People can become addicted to potato chips, and pornography, and excessive Amazon usage and TV and podcasts and TikTok viewing and religion.

Should all manufacturers have to tell people, "Hey if you overuse this, it COULD be harmful." You'd hope that some common sense would be called for on the part of the users.

[–] Itsamelemmy@lemmy.zip 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/article_fff7b864-2c3d-11ee-ae3c-4fa9fdf887ba.html

That's just one case of many. And are you seriously trying to compare food or porn addiction to heroin in a bottle?

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-global-resolution-criminal-and-civil-investigations-opioid

As part of the plea, Purdue will admit that from May 2007 through at least March 2017, Purdue conspired to defraud the United States by impeding the lawful function of the DEA by representing to the DEA that Purdue maintained an effective anti-diversion program when, in fact, Purdue continued to market its opioid products to more than 100 health care providers whom the company had good reason to believe were diverting opioids and by reporting misleading information to the DEA to boost Purdue’s manufacturing quotas.  The misleading information comprised prescription data that included prescriptions written by doctors that Purdue had good reason to believe were engaged in diversion.  The conspiracy also involved aiding and abetting violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by facilitating the dispensing of its opioid products, including OxyContin, without a legitimate medical purpose, and thus without lawful prescriptions.

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nope, you totally missed the point. End of discussion.

[–] Itsamelemmy@lemmy.zip 2 points 9 months ago

Your point was wrong and I refuted it with sources. But if you want to stick your fingers in your ears and yell la la la la go ahead. Doesn't make you right though.