{"id":1650317,"date":"2022-09-21T06:39:24","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T10:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1650317"},"modified":"2022-09-21T06:39:39","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T10:39:39","slug":"cvs-walmart-reach-147-5-million-opioid-settlement-with-west-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/cvs-walmart-reach-147-5-million-opioid-settlement-with-west-virginia\/","title":{"rendered":"CVS, Walmart Reach $147.5 Million Opioid Settlement With West Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcvs-walmart-reach-147-5-million-opioid-settlement-with-west-virginia%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1650317&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-cvs\">CVS<\/a> Health Corp. and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-walmart\">Walmart<\/a> Inc. have agreed to pay $147.5 million to settle West Virginia\u2019s claims over their alleged roles in the state\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-opioid\">opioid<\/a> crisis, state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>CVS agreed to pay $82.5 million and Walmart agreed to pay approximately $65 million, according to the state.<\/p>\n<p>West Virginia had been prepared to proceed to trial on Sept. 26 against the two companies, as well as Walgreens Boots Alliance.<\/p>\n<p>The state had accused the pharmacy chains of fueling the deadly opioid epidemic through their allegedly lax oversight of prescription pills sold in the state.<\/p>\n<p>Walgreens has not settled, and a trial has been rescheduled for June 2023.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe that we have a very strong case against Walgreens,\u201d Morrisey said at a news conference. \u201cWe\u2019re going to pursue that quite vigorously.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kroger Co. will also be a defendant in the rescheduled June 2023 trial.<\/p>\n<p>West Virginia has been particularly hard hit by the epidemic, with a per capita opioid mortality rate over three times the national average in 2020, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.<\/p>\n<p>CVS said that it will continue to defend itself in other opioid lawsuits, but believed that \u201cputting these claims behind us\u201d was the right decision in the West Virginia case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur position remains that opioid prescriptions are written by doctors, not pharmacists, and that opioid medications are made and marketed by manufacturers, not pharmacies,\u201d CVS spokesman Michael DeAngelis said.<\/p>\n<p>Walmart and Walgreens did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>More than 3,300 lawsuits have been filed against drugmakers, distributors, and pharmacies over the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>The litigation has increasingly targeted pharmacy chains in recent months, after drug makers and distributors reached major nationwide settlements, including a $26 billion deal with the three leading drug distributors and Johnson &#038; Johnson, addressing their liabilities.<\/p>\n<p>Walgreens has resisted settlements in other opioid cases brought by state and local governments this year. It was the last defendant to settle a lawsuit over Florida\u2019s opioid claims, and it was the sole defendant to go to trial over San Francisco\u2019s opioid claims.<\/p>\n<p>Walgreens was found liable for fueling opioid addiction in San Francisco, and the amount it must pay will be determined in a future trial.<\/p>\n<p>Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart were found liable for contributing to the opioid crisis in two Ohio counties, and were ordered to pay $650 million in that case.<\/p>\n<p><em>By Dietrich Knauth<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-reuters\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CVS Health Corp. and Walmart Inc. have agreed to pay $147.5 million to settle West Virginia\u2019s claims over their alleged roles in the state\u2019s opioid crisis, state Attorney General Patrick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1650317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1650317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1650317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1650317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1650317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}