New York reaches $1.1 billion settlement with opioid distributors
20 July 2021
New York reached a $1.1 billion settlement on Tuesday with three of the country's largest drug distributors for their alleged role in the opioid epidemic, New York Attorney General Letitia James said.
The big picture: The settlement comes as the three companies — McKesson, Cardinal Health, and Amerisource Bergen — as well as Johnson & Johnson near a $26 billion deal with states and municipalities that would settle thousands of lawsuits related to the opioid crisis, the New York Times reports.
- Tuesday's agreement in New York is the only deal that has been formally settled to so far, per the Times.
- New York last month reached a separate $230 million settlement with Johnson & Johnson over its role in the opioid crisis.
Driving the news: According to Tuesday's settlement, the three distributors will spread their payments out over the next 17 years.
- The companies will also participate in a tracking system that is designed to control the amount of opioids sold and shipped to pharmacies across the country.
- They admit to no wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
What she's saying: "Over the course of these past two decades, McKesson, Cardinal Health, and Amerisource Bergen distributed these opioids without regard to the national crisis they were helping to fuel," James said in a statement.
- "But today, we’re holding them accountable and delivering more than $1 billion more into New York communities ravaged by opioids for treatment, recovery, and prevention efforts."
Go deeper:CDC says drug overdose deaths hit record 93,300 in 2020
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.