While critics keep throwing up a false narrative about “ambulance chasing,” self-enriching lawyers, their labors and the civil legal system have proven yet again their effectiveness in wringing financial justice for those harmed by health care giants.
The nation’s largest pharmacy chains have tentatively agreed to pay $10 billion in settlements for dispensing an avalanche of addictive, debilitating, and deadly prescription painkillers.
CVS and Walgreens, which had been among the staunchest holdouts in battling opioid litigation, both defended their business practices and denied any wrongdoing. They blamed doctors for excessive prescribing of powerful opioid drugs, which, federal officials say, fueled an abuse and overdose crisis that is worsening and killed more than 100,000 Americans last year.