Four WV Cities Sue Joint Commission Over ‘Misrepresenting’ Addictive Qualities of Opioids

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The West Virginia locales of Charleston, Huntington, Kenova and Ceredo have filed a proposed class action lawsuit against accreditation outfit The Joint Commission—formerly known as The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO)—and Joint Commission Resources, Inc. over the entities’ alleged gross misrepresentation of the addictive qualities of opioids.

The complaint explains that hospitals that treat residents of the plaintiff communities must follow the defendants’ “Pain Management Standards” to maintain JCAHO certification, which the case describes as essential to health care organizations to continue their operations. The lawsuit argues that these “Pain Management Standards,” which the defendants released with Purdue Pharma L.P. and other opioid manufacturers in 2001, have, as part of a “widespread misinformation campaign,” given rise to “dangerous pain control practices” that have led to disastrous consequences for communities such as the plaintiffs. Moreover, the case claims the defendants, despite the increasingly evident nature of the opioid crisis in the plaintiff communities, continue to zealously enforce their “Pain Management Standards,” even after Purdue Pharma, in 2007, pleaded guilty to felony criminal charges related to its misrepresentations of OxyContin.

According to the 44-page lawsuit, even after the defendants revised their “Pain Management Standards” in July 2017—and despite the opioid crisis being declared a national emergency the following month—the entities still have yet to disclose the true dangers of opioid painkillers, capping off what the suit calls JCAHO’s “reckless and negligent indifference to the horrors of addiction.” From the lawsuit (bolding from the complaint). 

 In a statement published by the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Huntington Mayor Steve Williams called this lawsuit “a critical move toward eliminating the source of opioid addiction and holding one of the most culpable parties responsible.” 

“For too long, [The Joint Commission] has operated in concert with opioid producers to establish pain management guidelines that feature the use of opioids virtually without restriction,” Williams added. “The [commission’s] standards are based on bad science, if they are based on any science at all.”