State and city governments are getting billions of dollars in settlements from business that made, offered, or dispersed prescription pain relievers and were implicated of sustaining the opioid crisis. More than a lots business will pay the cash over almost 20 years. Since late February 2024, more than $4.3 billion had actually landed in federal government coffers.
KFF Health News has actually been tracking how that cash is utilized– or misused– across the country.
Identifying how much of that windfall showed up in a particular county or city– and how much will follow in the future– can be tough. The majority of regions are not needed to make the details public.
BrownGreerthe court-appointed company administering the settlements, tracks much of this information however kept it personal till KFF Health News worked out to get it in 2015. KFF Health News made that info public for the very first time last June.
5 months later on, BrownGreer started silently publishing upgraded variations of the info on a public site
Roma Petkauskasa partner at BrownGreer, informed KFF Health News that the modification was made to help state and city governments in accessing the info quickly and “to promote openness into the administration” of the settlements. She stated the information is upgraded “routinely when brand-new payments are released,” which can be as regular as two times a month.
KFF Health News downloaded the information on March 4 and changed it from state-by-state spreadsheets with different entries for each settling business to a searchable database. Users can figure out the overall dollar amount their city, county, or state has actually gotten or anticipates to get each year.
Identifying just how much cash has actually gotten here is the initial step in evaluating whether the settlements will make a damage in the country’s dependency crisis.
This is the most extensive information readily available at a nationwide scale, it supplies simply a picture of all opioid settlement payments.
The info presently shows just the biggest settlement to date: $26 billion to be paid by pharmaceutical suppliers AmerisourceBergen (now called Cencora), Cardinal Health, and McKesson, in addition to opioid producer Janssen (now referred to as Johnson & & Johnson Innovative Medicine).
A lot of states have actually likewise settled with drug producers Teva and Allergan, along with Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS. Petkauskas stated BrownGreer started dispersing payments from these 5 business in 2024 and prepares to upgrade its information to show such payments in July.
Other settlements, consisting of with OxyContin maker Purdue, are still pending
This information does not show extra settlements that some state and city governments have actually participated in beyond the nationwide offers, such as the arrangement in between Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio and local grocery store chain Meijer.
This database undercounts the quantity of opioid settlement cash most locations have actually gotten and will get.
Payment information for some states are not offered since those states were not part of nationwide settlement arrangementshad special settlement terms, or decided not to have their payments dispersed through BrownGreer. A couple of examples consist of:
- Alabama and West Virginia decreased to sign up with numerous nationwide settlements and rather reached specific settlements with a lot of these business.
- Texas and Nevada were paid completely by Janssen beyond the nationwide settlement, so their payment information shows payments just from AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson.
- Florida, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania, to name a few, decided to get a lump-sum payment through BrownGreer then disperse the cash to regions themselves.
KFF Health News’ Colleen DeGuzman added to this report. Jai Aslam likewise contributed.