© 2024 Texas Public Radio
Real. Reliable. Texas Public Radio.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Bexar County Suing Opioid Industry

The on-going problem of opioid addiction has prompted Bexar County to take legal action.

Commissioners Court, on Tuesday, authorized the County to sue all opioid drug manufacturers, promoters, and distributors it considers responsible for causing and contributing to an epidemic of opioid addiction in Bexar County.

Martin Phipps of the law firm of Phipps Anderson Deacon LLP sites a June report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“The initial study, the 1980, that claimed that opioids were non-addictive, that they could be used for long-term use, even in high amounts, and that they were the compassionate way to treat patients who had pain, was actually false – that opioids are highly addictive and that the drug companies misled the public, they misled doctors to prescribe opioids,” said Phipps.

His firm and the firm of Watts Guerra LLP will lead the suit.

Judge Nelson Wolff compares it to the lawsuit against the tobacco industry. Any funds that may be granted to Bexar County would go to research and treatment.

Tags