Target: Mike Hunter, Attorney General of Oklahoma
Goal: Support efforts to hold major drug manufacturers accountable for opiod epidemic.
For too long, the companies (targeted in this ForceChange petition) who put profit over public health have gone unpunished. Due to a historic court ruling, at least one of these drug peddlers will finally be held accountable. The state of Oklahoma prevailed in its case against Johnson & Johnson: the manufacturer of two major opioids. State attorneys claimed the conglamerate engaged in a “multibillion-dollar brainwashing campaign to establish opioid analgesics as the magic drug.”
More specifically, this case outlined how Johnson & Johnson leaders deliberately ignored years of scientific research concerning the highly addictive nature of opioids. Worse yet, officials evolved an intensive marketing drive geared toward physicians that would ensure these deadly drugs ended up in as many hospitals and prescription bottles as possible. During these efforts, Johnson & Johnson’s leaders intentionally downplayed and even in some cases misled physicians about addiction research.
Johnson & Johnson was the last company standing in an important lawsuit that brought attention to the unethical practices of several drug manufacturers. For their actions, they will now have to pay half a billion dollars in reparations for a billions-dollar economic and health crisis they helped create. This verdict sends an important and forceful message to all pharmaceutical companies that their careless and heartless actions do have consequences.
Sign this petition to thank one of the legal minds who led this important, precedent-setting effort.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Attorney General Hunter,
Oklahoma and states around the country have paid an incalculable price for the opiod epidemic. While the judgment against Johnson & Johnson can never compensate for the lives lost, this verdict does set an essential new standard for accountability and ethical, humane medical corporate practice. Congratulations on this victory, and thank you for inspiring needed change.
Johnson & Johnson has engaged in questionable and dangerous bad faith practices for far too long, as evidenced by this case and its ongoing cases involving potential carcinogens in its products. This conglomerate and so many like it can and should operate in the best interest of the public. Money should never matter more than lives.
Please keep up the fight, and never stop reminding us that the legal system can work for the people.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Charles Williams
Fair is fair. They’re part of why the opioid epidemic came about and they and all the other corporations and people involved need to be punished to the fullest extent for what they’ve done to this country and the countless lives they’ve helped ruin!
Next – The Tobacco Companies