THEY STILL CAME OUT AHEAD –

Dec. 13, 2022 – In total, corporations have had to pay $54 billion in settlements. Walmart agreed last month to pay more than $3 billion to states, while four pharmaceutical companies – Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — agreed to pay $26 billion in February. 

Deaths from opioid drug overdoses were 8.5 times higher in 2020 than in 1999. More than 564,000 people died from opioid drug overdoses during that time period,according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The opioid crisis began in the 1990s with prescription opioids, while 2010 marked an increase in deaths from heroin, and 2013 sparked the prevalence of synthetic opioids, namely fentanyl, the CDC said.

Click@NPR