An advertising agency that helped develop marketing campaigns for OxyContin and other prescription painkillers has agreed to pay U.S. states $350 million rather than face the possibility of trials over its role in the opioid crisis, attorneys general said Thursday.
Publicis Health, part of the Paris-based media conglomerate Publicis Groupe, agreed to pay the entire settlement in the next two months, with most of the money to be used to fight the overdose epidemic.
It is the first advertising company to reach a major settlement over the toll of opioids in the U.S. It faced a lawsuit in at least Massachusetts but settled with most states before they made court claims against it.
The US shouldn’t allow prescription advertising in the first place. The practice of paying off doctors with travel, speaking engagements and ‘gifts’ needs to end too.
There’s a hell of a lot the US shouldn’t allow, alas they do it anyway.
In France all gifts or refunds that are made to health professionals must be declared and it’s on a database accessible to the public.
https://www.transparence.sante.gouv.fr