Native American tribes from across the U.S. will receive $590 million from the country’s three largest drug distributors and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson to resolve claims that the companies fueled the opioid crisis in their communities.
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Tuesday’s settlement came after J&J and the distributors, McKesson Corp, AmerisourceBergen Corp and Cardinal Health Inc originally proposed a payment of $26 billion to resolve similar claims by local and state governments.
That proposed settlement did not include lawsuits and potential claims by the country’s 574 federally recognized Native American tribes and Alaska Native villages, groups which experienced exponentially higher rates of opioid overdoses than other communities.
Under the latest agreement, the distributors would pay out almost $440 million over a course of seven years. J&J would contribute an additional $150 million over two years.
That sum follows the $75 million the distributors agreed to pay the Cherokee Nation in September — the first settlement with a tribe.
J&J said in an official statement it did not admit wrongdoing as part of the agreement. It stated its actions promoting prescription opioid pain medications was “appropriate and responsible,” noting that it no longer manufactures or sells the type of drugs in question.
Almost 3,500 lawsuits have been filed against companies responsible for the opioid abuse epidemic that led to hundreds of thousands of U.S. overdose deaths in the last 20 years.
The lawsuits accuse the distributors of insufficient oversight, control and processes that allowed massive amounts of addictive painkillers to be diverted into illegal channels, and drugmakers including J&J of downplaying the addiction risk in their marketing of opioids.
Representation for the tribes said in a filing that the opioid epidemic’s disproportionate impact on their populations resulted in them incurring increased costs for healthcare, social services, child welfare, law enforcement and other services.
Tuesday’s deal came one week after the larger $26 billion settlement reached a critical impasse, as most eligible governments in participating states agreed to join the deal. Five states have yet to settle with some or all of the four companies.
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