BURLINGTON — The Howard Center, a local addiction and health treatment center, filed suit Tuesday against opioid drug distributors, retailers and manufacturers.
The complaint argues that 21 opioid providers negligently distributed opioid drugs in the state, leading to the Howard Center “being flooded with patients who required its services.” These providers include Johnson & Johnson, CVS Health and Walmart.
Since opiate treatment services often go unpaid, the center said it has had to absorb a significant amount of unreimbursed costs.
Bob Bick, the CEO of the Howard Center, said the organization was still trying to calculate the total cost the center had incurred but said the figure was “in the millions” of dollars.”
The Howard Center joins thousands of other plaintiffs that have filed suit against opioid distributors. Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan has sued both pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family, the company’s founders.
The Howard Center’s lawsuit says that the health crisis caused by the opioid epidemic could have been prevented by the defendants who profited by encouraging the overprescription of opioids in the region.
“The addiction epidemic of prescription opioid abuse in the United States has caused health care providers, including Howard Center, extraordinary economic damages, substantial loss of resources, and capital costs,” the lawsuit states.
The Howard Center argues that the drug distribution industry was supposed to be a “check” on the drug delivery system, but the defendants “woefully failed” in that duty and ignored “known or knowable problems and data in their supply chains.”
“This epidemic is the largest health care crisis in U.S. history, and it has financially harmed Howard Center to the point that it has hampered its ability to provide health and addiction services,” the lawsuit says.
Bick said Friday that the Howard Center had been dealing with the fallout of the inappropriate prescription, sale and distribution of prescription opiates.
“As a result of that, we have incurred substantial losses over the years and wanted to meet the onslaught of clients and family members who have been affected,” Bick said. “If there’s going to be some reckoning, we want the manufacturers, distributors and retailers who played a part to be held accountable and to reimburse us for some of those costs.”
