EnviroPolitics Blog

Johnson & Johnson ordered to pay $572 million for its role in Oklahoma’s opioid crisis

Lenny Bernstein reports for the Washington Post

NORMAN, Okla.— A judge Monday found Johnson & Johnson responsible for fueling Oklahoma’s opioid crisis, ordering the health care company to pay $572 million to remedy the devastation wrought by the epidemic on the state and its residents.

Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman’s landmark decision is the first to hold a drugmaker culpable for the fallout of years of liberal opioid dispensing that began in the late 199os, sparking a nationwide epidemic of overdose deaths and addiction. More than 400,000 people have died of overdoses from painkillers, heroin and illegal fentanyl since 1999.

“The opioid crisis has ravaged the state of Oklahoma and must be abated immediately,” Balkman said, reading part of his decision aloud from the bench Monday afternoon.

“As a matter of law, I find that defendants’ actions caused harm, and those harms are the kinds recognized by [state law] because those actions annoyed, injured or endangered the comfort, repose, health or safety of Oklahomans,” he wrote in the decision.

With more than 40 states lined up to pursue similar claims against the pharmaceutical industry, the ruling in the first state case to go to trial could influence both side’s strategies in the months and years to come. Plaintiffs’ attorneys around the country cheered the decision, saying they hoped it would serve as a bellwether for an enormous federal lawsuit brought by nearly 2,000 cities, counties, Native American tribes and others, which is scheduled to begin in October.

Johnson & Johnson, which has denied any wrongdoing, said it would appeal the decision. “Janssen did not cause the opioid crisis in Oklahoma, and neither the facts nor the law support this outcome,” said Michael Ullmann, general counsel for Johnson & Johnson.

Ullmann said the ruling disregards the drugmaker’s compliance with federal and state laws, “the unique role its medicines play in the lives of the people who need them,” and the fact its drugs accounted for less than 1 percent of total opioid prescriptions in Oklahoma as well as the United States.

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter (R) brought suit in 2017 against New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson and two other major drug companies, accusing them of creating “a public nuisance” by showering the state with opioids, while downplaying the drugs’ addictive potential and persuading physicians to use them even for minor aches and pains. Before the late 1990s, physicians reserved the powerful drugs primarily for cancer and post-surgical pain and end-of-life care.

More than 6,000 Oklahomans have died of painkiller overdoses since 2000, the state charged in court papers, as the number of opioid prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies reached 479 every hour in 2017.

Johnson & Johnson’s products — two prescription opioid pills and a fentanyl skin patch sold by its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals — were a small part of the painkillers consumed in Oklahoma. But Hunter painted the company as a “kingpin” of the drug trade because two other companies it owned grew, processed and supplied 60 percent of the ingredients in painkillers sold by most drug companies.

“At the root of this crisis was Johnson & Johnson, a company that literally created the poppy that became the source of the opioid crisis,” the state charged.

The state also said that Johnson & Johnson took an active part in the pharmaceutical industry’s effort to change doctors’ reluctance to prescribe opioids by mounting an aggressive misinformation campaign that targeted the least knowledgeable physicians.

The company’s “marketing scheme was driven by a desire to make billions for their pain franchise,” Hunter wrote. “To do this, they developed and carried out a plan to directly influence and convince doctors to prescribe more and more opioids, despite the fact that defendants knew increasing the supply of opioids would lead to abuse, addiction, misuse, death and crime.”

Oklahoma settled in March with Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of OxyContin, accepting $270 million from the company and its owners, the Sackler family. Most of that will go to a treatment and research center at Oklahoma State University, although the federal government is seeking a portion of the money.

In May, two days before the trial began, the state settled with Teva Pharmaceuticals, an Israeli-based manufacturer of generic drugs, for $85 million.

That left corporate giant Johnson & Johnson, which chose to fight the accusations in what became a seven-week trial before Balkman. There was no jury.

The core of Johnson & Johnson’s defense was that it could not be held liable for supplying legal products and ingredients, which were highly regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration and state authorities themselves.

At trial, company lawyers sought to rebut accusations of a misinformation campaign by attributing them to third parties and contending sales calls to doctors did not lead to overprescribing, or the drug crisis.

“At the heart of the state’s case is the premise that stray promotional statements by Janssen over the course of two decades somehow caused Oklahoma’s opioid abuse crisis,” their lawyers wrote, referring to the subsidiary that supplied the opioids. “Never once, however, did the state identify a single Oklahoma doctor who was misled by a single statement Janssen made,” they said in documents filed at the conclusion of the trial.

As for its two subsidiaries that grew, refined and supplied the ingredients that went into painkillers, Johnson & Johnson lawyers said that Noramco and Tasmanian Alkaloids engaged in legal commerce under the watchful eye of the DEA and in compliance with the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Legally, the trial centered on the state’s novel, perhaps unprecedented, attempt to claim the drug company created a public nuisance in the state of Oklahoma. Historically, that law has been used against loud neighbors, brothels and polluters who used their properties in ways that harmed others. The remedy has been to force them to stop.

But in this case, Oklahoma, citing the law, said the drug company’s conduct did “annoy, injure and endanger the comfort, repose, health and safety of others,” as well as “render Oklahomans insecure in life and in the use of property.”

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Reports Say Toxins Have Been Found At 18 Swim, Drinking Sites in New Jersey

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Swimming or touching the water was banned at several water sites, but a new report says the problem has been bigger than you’d think.

By Tom David, Patch staff

NEW JERSEY – Swimming or touching the water was banned at several New Jersey water sites this summer, but a new report says the problem has been bigger than you’d think over the past 12 years.

Researchers at the Environmental Working Group, an activist nonprofit group, have just released a report identifying 10 water sites – in addition to at least eight spots identified by state and county agencies –that have had trouble with a harmful toxins often cased by algae blooms over the past decade.

The report documents the detection of “microcystins” in water sites over the past 12 years, but still could cause problems in the near future. Microcystins are a class of toxins produced by freshwater cyanobacteria, which state and county officials say has been blooming at several New Jersey swimming sites this summer.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has been taking action by either shutting down the beaches or issuing advisories to minimize the risk of toxic blue-green algae.

At least one of those sites identified – the Manasquan Reservoir – helps provide 60 percent of the potable water used in Brielle, Sea Girt, Spring Lake, Spring Lake Heights, and Wall Township, according to the New Jersey Water Supply Authority website.

The EWG report, however, shows additional locations that have had a detectable presence of toxins. EWG derived results from publicly available records from the Environmental Protection Agency; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a number of states.

Acute illnesses caused by exposure to cyanotoxins can happen, the state Department of Environmental Protection says. After short-term exposures, the toxins can cause liver and kidney damage. Livestock and pets could be particularly vulnerable, and contact with the water could be fatal to animals.

“Microcystins are poisonous toxins that can form in blooms of blue-green algae,” the EWG report says. “In recent years, algae blooms – actually microscopic bacteria called cyanobacteria – have erupted in hundreds of lakes nationwide, putting at risk Americans whose drinking water comes from those lakes, or who swim, ski or fish in them.”

The EWG report identified theses sites where toxins have been identified:

Highland Lake, Sussex County
Lake Washington, Passaic County
Maple Lake, Estell Manor, Atlantic County
Mount Hope Lake, Morris County
Orange Reservoir, Essex County
Packanack Lake, Passaic County
Panorama Lake, Sussex County
Round Valley Reservoir, Clinton Township, Hunterdon County
Swimming spot near Schooley’s Mountain in Morris County
Swimming River Reservoir, Monmouth County

State and county agencies, meanwhile, have also closed these sites because of algae blooms and harmful bacteria:

Manasquan Reservoir

A harmful algae bloom has prompted authorities to ban swimming and other water activities at Manasquan Reservoir until further notice. Drinking water pulled from the reservoir is being treated to remove the algae and any of its byproducts, a New Jersey Water Supply Authority official said.
Read more: Algae Bloom Closes Manasquan Reservoir To Swimming, Boating

Lake Hopatcong

A widespread, harmful algal bloom blanketed New Jersey’s largest lake in a thick, green covering that could pose a season-long problem for lake-goers.

The bloom caused the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to take the unprecedented step of issuing a lake-wide advisory against entering, or even touching, the water for further notice, just days before the Fourth of July. The lake has since reopened.

Greenwood Lake

Harmful bacteria levels from algae bloom at Greenwood Lake were up to 10 times higher than what is recommended by the state, test results taken from the lake show. Read more: Greenwood Lake Bacteria Levels 10X Higher Above Safe Level

Spruce Run Recreation Area

The Clinton swimming area has been shut down for nearly the entire season. There is no swimming until further notice.

People were told to not drink or have contact with the water including, but not limited to, swimming, wading and water sports. Fish caught in this waterbody should not be eaten. Pets should not drink the water.

Swartswood State Park

The swimming section of the lake in Swartswood State Park was closed during the summer after a harmful algae bloom was detected. The park was ultimately reopened once the bloom subsided.

Park-goers were once again told to not have any contact with the water, including swimming, wading, water sports, and drinking.

In addition to the algae bloom, Duck Pond Trail and some parts of Spring Lake Trail have been closed because of flooding.

These areas have also been under an advisory:

Lake Mohawk in Sparta
Deal Lake in Asbury Park
Sunset Lake in Asbury Park

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The effects of climate change in New Jersey are everywhere

Scott Fallon and Andrew Ford report for the North Jersey Record

Disease-carrying mosquitoes and ticks are an increased threat in New Jersey because they are living longer lives due to extended warm months and mild winters.

Some of the state’s largest and most popular lakes have been inundated by algae blooms this summer due to an exceptionally wet year and exceptionally warm July.

And fish that once swam in abundance off the coast of New Jersey have migrated north in search of cooler waters.

Climate change is no longer an abstract concept or future threat, scientists say. Its effects are being felt all over New Jersey, from Shore towns facing increased coastal flooding to Meadowlands communities that were ravaged by Superstorm Sandy and inland communities dealing with increased flash flooding from more intense rainfall.

“What we’re seeing lately is unprecedented in the magnitude of the changes and the speed at which they are occurring,” said David Robinson, a Rutgers University professor and the state climatologist, who has been analyzing New Jersey’s climate for decades. “It’s a global issue that has local ramifications, and in New Jersey that’s manifesting itself in rising temperatures and more abundant rainfall.”

Annual temperatures in New Jersey have increased approximately 3 degrees since the beginning of the 20th century. Climate models show two possible futures: one in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase (in red) and another in which greenhouse gas emissions increase at a slower rate (in green). (Photo: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

The overwhelming majority of scientists, peer-reviewed studies, and government agencies have shown that the planet is warming due in large part to human activity, such as burning fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and gasoline, which has increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, preventing heat from escaping into space.

New Jersey is fast becoming ground zero for climate change. Sea level rise is happening so fast in the state that it’s double the global average, thanks in part to melting glaciers and the expansion of warmer water along with a gradually sinking coastal landmass.

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More U.S. Towns Are Feeling The Pinch As Recycling Becomes Costlier

REBECCA DAVIS reports for NPR

Donald Sanderson says people in Woodbury, N.J., call him the “father of recycling” after he and other City Council members in 1980 passed what they say was the first mandatory curbside recycling program in the United States. *Rebecca Davis/NPR*

When curbside recycling caught on in the 1970s, it was mostly about cans, glass, cardboard and paper. That’s how Donald Sanderson remembers it.

Sanderson is 90 years old, an earnest man with a ready smile. Every Thursday in Woodbury, N.J., where he lives, he hauls a big blue recycling bin out to the curb. Recycling is close to his heart. “I guess you could say I’m the father of recycling,” he says. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

In the late 1970s, most trash just went to the local landfill, which cost Woodbury a lot of money in fees. And the landfill was filling up. Sanderson, who was on the City Council at the time, came up with an idea: There was a market for some of that trash — there were companies that would buy and reuse it.

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So Sanderson suggested people should have to sort their waste and put glass, metal and paper out on the curb for pickup.

Many residents thought Sanderson was nuts. They worried their taxes would go up. Newspaper editorials tore the plan apart, and some people let Sanderson know firsthand how they felt.

Sanderson holds a 1981 announcement of the new mandatory curbside recycling program in Woodbury, N.J. *Rebecca Davis/NPR*

“They dumped trash on my lawn,” he recalls with a laugh. “I would open the door — and they would dump it the night before — and when I’d come out in the morning, I’d see what was there.” But, he says, “it didn’t really bother me. It made me more determined to make the program a success.”

When the council took up the proposed recycling ordinance, the vote was close, but Sanderson won. It was 1980, and Woodbury became a pioneer in recycling. The city claims to be the first in the United States to adopt a mandatory curbside recycling program.

Woodbury even started making money by selling its trash to companies that would recycle it.

That was nearly 40 years ago. More and more, that scenario has flipped: Communities are now having to pay to get rid of their rubbish. It’s happening in Woodbury and in places all over the country.

But back when recycling began to catch on, it was a godsend to local communities. As Americans bought more goods, there was ever more stuff to throw away — cardboard, glass, metal and, increasingly, plastic. Scrap was valuable. A global market grew around it, especially in China.

U.S. Recycling Industry Is Struggling To Figure Out A Future Without China — To encourage people to recycle more, communities in the 1990s started having residents put all their trash into one bin. It was called single-stream recycling.

“Good concept in theory, if it had worked the way it was supposed to,” says Monica Gismondi, the recycling coordinator in Gloucester County, where Woodbury is located. She says single stream has been a disaster for the facilities that accept and sort household trash destined for recycling — people started putting everything into their recycling bins. “They were getting the rubber hoses in there and literally the kitchen sink and the bathroom toilets and the bowling balls,” she says.

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And a lot more plastic was showing up, everything from soda and water bottles to plastic grocery bags and shampoo bottles and food wrap. A lot of it couldn’t — and still can’t — be recycled. “That seems to be the biggest change over the last, say, 20 years,” Gismondi says. “How everything is going into a plastic container.” (See our interactive to learn more about what can and can’t go in the bin.)

A pile of debris including all kinds of plastics grows hourly at Omni Recycling, a materials recovery facility in Pitman, N.J. Plastic bags are especially problematic because they can get caught in the conveyor belts and equipment and gum up the recycling process. *Rebecca Davis/NPR*

Now plastic has become the biggest thorn in the side of the recycling industry and one for which taxpayers are more often footing the bill.

At Omni Recycling, a materials recovery facility in Pitman, N.J., one can see firsthand the mess that plastic has become for recyclers.

Recycling trucks from Woodbury and other towns stream in and out. Front-end loaders shovel mounds of trash onto the floor and then onto conveyor belts. It’s very, very loud. Piles of trash roll by on the belts. Optical sorters use laser beams to identify what objects are made of. Blasts of air separate them.

Like any other materials recovery facility, Omni is trying to separate the material it can sell, like plastic bottles (known by their plastic IDs as “1s” and “2s”), from what it can’t, like plastic bags.

Kevin Carducci is part owner and plant manager of Omni Recycling. He says it costs the business $1 million a year to get rid of the plastics that can’t be recycled. Rebecca Davis/NPR

Kevin Carducci, who is part owner and plant manager of Omni, points to an enormous pile of plastic bags. “That came off the system in the last four hours,” he says. “The screens get cleaned three times a day to remove all those plastic bags.” And that’s just the bags. Then there are the other nonrecyclables: pouches, film wrap, chip bags, Styrofoam, some tubs and clamshells, PVC pipes, plastic toys.

Those items should never have gone into a recycling bin, Carducci says. He can’t sell it, it’s not easily made into other products and it costs him money to deal with it.

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“It cost over a million dollars last year to remove all this residue and bags,” he says.

To recoup those costs, Carducci bills the towns he serves to process and dispose of their trash. So the days when Woodbury got paid for its recyclables are gone. Like many communities in the U.S., Woodbury now has to pay materials recovery facilities to take its waste.

Materials recovery facilities in the U.S. used to sell a lot of plastic waste to China, which was willing to sort through it. But the nonrecyclables ended up making a huge mess both on land and in the ocean. So last year, China stopped buying most of it, and now materials recovery facilities in the U.S. are left holding the bag, literally.

Carducci says his profit margin is paper=thin. Most of his revenue comes from recycling bottles, but it’s harder to make money on bottles because they keep getting thinner. “It takes six times the amount of bottles, countwise, to get the same pound [of recyclable plastic] as you did years ago,” he says.

According to the recycling industry, only about 9% of plastic waste in the U.S. gets recycled every year (and probably less now, since China is no longer importing as much of it).

Meanwhile, it’s nearly as cheap for towns like Woodbury just to dump plastic waste into landfills as it is to send plastic waste off for recycling.

Carducci says the situation won’t change unless the companies that make all that plastic packaging start making more of it recyclable.

“It’s on them,” he says.

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Soccer star Carli Lloyd kicks 55-yard field goal at Eagles-Ravens practice

David Weinberg reports for the Atlantic City Press

PHILADELPHIA — Carli Lloyd’s soccer skills served her pretty well on the football field Tuesday.

Lloyd, who has won two Women’s World Cups and two Olympic gold medals with the U.S. Women’s National Team, booted a 55-yard field goal after the Philadelphia Eagles’ joint practice with Baltimore at the NovaCare Complex.

Lloyd, who grew up an Eagles fan in nearby Delran, got some tips from Eagles place-kicker Jake Elliott and Ravens kicker Justin Tucker and special- teams coach Randy Brown, the former mayor of Evesham Township, Camden County.

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After hitting a 25-yarder, she moved back and, with Ravens punter Sam Koch serving as her holder, booted a 55-yarder between the uprights.

“Thank you to the Eagles for having me out!” Lloyd, 37, wrote on Twitter. “Thanks to (Tucker, Elliott and Brown) for the good time and tips! #55yd”

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So what has this got to do with the environment or politics, you ask? Admittedly, not much. But cool nonetheless, no?

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PES up against the clock to sell Philadelphia refinery

Laila Kearney reports for Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Finding a buyer for Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ oil refinery has grown urgent as the bankrupt company’s funds dwindle and no signs emerge that it is winning a fight for insurance payouts after a June blaze at the plant, according to court documents and bankruptcy experts.

Without access to the more than $1 billion in insurance coverage, selling the refinery has become one of the company’s only options to raise cash before being forced to liquidate.

At least three parties have potential proposals to buy the shut Philadelphia refinery, each with plans to reopen the 1,300-acre (5.3-square km) site with a mix of oil refining and alternative energy production, sources familiar with the plans said.

Initial meetings are scheduled between the prospective buyers and a collection of vetters over the next several weeks, but it is unclear how long it would take for any official bid to come together, the sources said.

PES was not available for comment on whether it had reviewed any of the proposals or how viable it considered them to be.

For the second time in less than two years, PES filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 21, exactly a month after fire and blasts destroyed an alkylation unit at the 335,000-barrel-per-day refinery.

PES shut its final crude unit in late July, and more than 600 workers are in the process of being laid off without severance pay or the option for continued health insurance.

The company has no prepackaged arrangement to restructure the business or income from running the refinery, the largest in the U.S. Northeast, raising the likelihood it will be forced to liquidate.

“They’re playing a game against the clock,” said Christina Simeone, a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, who wrote a report last year predicting the refinery would close by 2022 due to poor economics.

To emerge from bankruptcy, PES needs to tap into $1.25 billion in property damage and loss of business insurance coverage, according to court filings. So far, PES has been denied requests for payment, and at least one creditor has surfaced to fight for any future insurance proceeds. Seven others are objecting to PES’ bankruptcy plan.

It is unclear how much is left of the initial $65 million bankruptcy loan PES secured at the start of the process, which is needed to pay for attorneys, wind down the massive refinery complex, utility bills and salaries.

PES recently asked the court to retain law firm Kirkland and Ellis for $4.6 million and another firm for $1 million, according to court documents.

On Friday, the U.S. Trustee appointed to the bankruptcy case objected to Kirkland and Ellis, saying the firm has represented PES’s largest equity holders in unrelated matters, creating a potential conflict of interest, court documents show.

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“Given the incident which precipitated the filing of this Chapter 11 proceeding, there is a strong likelihood that the assets of the debtor will be liquidated rather than reorganized,” the trustee wrote in court documents.

PES hired investment bank PJT Partners about two weeks ago to market the site. PJT declined to comment on its efforts to find a buyer.

Companies in Chapter 11 bankruptcies generally face two scenarios when attempting to sell assets, said Eric Snyder, a bankruptcy expert and partner at New York-based law firm Wilk Auslander, who is not working on PES’ case.

With the luxury of time, companies can enter into an agreement with a single bidder to be decided on by a bankruptcy court judge. Or, they can hold a bare auction, opening up the sale to all qualified bidders for a set period of time.

If no deal comes together before the company runs out of money, it could be forced to start Chapter 7 liquidation, Snyder said. Chapter 11 is a generally better outcome for creditors, as assets tend to fall in value during liquidation, which would leave them with less chance to collect on what they are owed.

“It’s in the creditors’ best interest to try to make it through Chapter 11, but for people interested in the PES site for future uses, it’s far better for it to go to Chapter 7,” the Kleinman Center’s Simeone said.

Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Tom Brown

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