Babies born in withdrawal new complication in opioid cases

Associated Press

The expansive court case seeking to hold drugmakers responsible for the nation’s opioid crisis has a new complication: How does it deal with claims covering the thousands of babies born dependent on the drugs?

Attorneys representing the children and their guardians want their claims separated from the federal case in Cleveland that involves hundreds of local governments and other entities such as hospitals. They told a skeptical panel of judges in New York on Thursday that they have different legal issues, a need for faster relief because the babies need services in the first years of their lives. They also told the judges that as it is, they lack the leverage to exact a settlement from drug companies.

Babies, unlike governments or businesses, have been directly harmed by the actions of drugmakers and are entitled to their own payments, said Scott Bickford, a lead lawyer for the children and their guardians.

Bickford said more than 150,000 babies were born in opioid withdrawal from 2012 through 2016, and that the number grows each year.

He said initial hospital stays for babies born to an opioid-addicted mother can cost $200,000 to $250,000 more than other infants born without complications.

“Then you have to address their developmental and learning problems,” Bickford said in a Tuesday interview. “A lot of them have organ problems. A lot of them have problems we don’t even know about.”

Drug manufacturers and distributors oppose creating a new structure for the lawsuits over the children and judges on the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation hearing the matter in New York on Thursday wondered what good it would do.

Opioids – including prescription painkillers, heroin and synthetic substances including fentanyl – killed nearly 48,000 Americans last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The cost of treatment, providing an overdose antidote, foster care, jail stays, ambulance runs and addressing a growing homeless crisis have added up for governments and taxpayers. Studies have found that opioid addiction also has depleted the workforce, harming the economy.

More than 1,400 plaintiffs have had their federal cases consolidated under a single judge. They include county and local governments, hospitals, unions, American Indian tribes and individuals.

Hundreds of others have sued in state courts. Cleveland-based federal Judge Dan Polster has been pushing the parties to reach a settlement.