51ÊÓƵ

After securing a hefty financial settlement from Purdue Pharma last month, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter is training the state’s legal armaments on a much bigger pharmaceutical player: Johnson & Johnson. The company already has become a popular target. Many of the more than 1,600 opioid lawsuits in state and federal courts name Johnson & Johnson, even though its analgesic products account for less than 1% of the U.S. opioid market. (Vestal, 4/4)

On Friday, Bishop and two other veterans filed suit in Illinois’ Third Judicial Circuit, which includes Madison and Bond counties, against Purdue Pharma and more than a dozen other pharmaceutical companies, alleging they marketed dangerous painkilling drugs to vets. (Hundsdorfer, 4/3)

Fentanyl is killing black people in Connecticut at the same rate as whites for the first time since state officials began tracking the epidemic around 2012, a CT Mirror analysis has found. There is no clear consensus among experts in Connecticut as to what is driving up the death rate among African Americans. (Carlesso and Kara, 4/4)