Frankfort, Ky: Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear has filed a fifth lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company for deceptive marketing of opioid-based painkillers. Beshear says Johnson & Johnson and two of its subsidiaries claimed its opioid drugs were “rarely addictive” when used for chronic pain. Beshear says the companies violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act and the Kentucky Medicaid and Kentucky Assistance Program fraud statutes.

“These companies a created a campaign of misinformation designed to mislead patients and doctors about both the severity and the frequency of the risk of addiction of these strong opioids. In fact until recently, Jansen ran a website called prescriberresponsibility.com that claimed concerns about opioid addiction were over estimated. That is shameful.”

From 2006 to 2015, Beshear said Kentucky had more opioid prescriptions than people and the state had the sixth-highest number of opioid-related deaths in the country.

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