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Lawsuit Filed Against 14 Drug Companies Claiming Role In Overdoses

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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The numbers are startling. Every day, 13 people in Pennsylvania die of a drug overdose.

Many of those overdoses are caused from an addiction of prescription drugs. Now, the companies that make and distribute the drugs are coming under scrutiny.

A lawsuit has now been filed in Beaver County against 14 drug companies, claiming they have played a role in the number of overdoses.

Those overdoses have cost the county millions of dollars and the county wants that money back.

Attorney Bob Peirce Jr. announced the lawsuit Monday morning, calling the opioid abuse epidemic unbelievable.

"The drug companies and the distributors who we are suing knew that these drugs were addictive and they kept pumping them into the mainstream of these small towns and counties," Peirce said.

He said Beaver County has the ability to recover the money spent by taxpayers for the opioid abuse epidemic. He noted that unlike the tobacco lawsuit decades ago, damages from the opioid abuse can be cited.

Watch Lynne Hayes-Freeland's report --

 

"The overtime, the emergency medical responses, the millions of dollars that this drug crisis has cost our counties," he said.

Peirce says there are 23 defendants - pharmaceutical companies and doctors who worked for the companies - doctors who said the opioid drugs were not addictive.

"If you saw '60 Minutes' last night, you saw the three major distributors. We are suing them. You saw some doctors testify that these drugs were not addictive, we are suing those doctors and there are 14 pharmaceutical companies that manufactured and distributed these drugs under the guise that they were not addictive," Peirce said.

Peirce said he expects by the end of October, there will be lawsuits filed on behalf of other counties in western Pennsylvania. For Beaver County, the law firm's fee will be 25 percent of whatever damages are recovered.

"They don't have to spend any money," said Peirce. "We are bearing the cost of this. We're bearing the cost of the investigation, we're bearing the cost of the litigation and this is something they don't have to do. Now, they're working with us. All of the counties are working with us."

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