DEERFIELD, Unwell. (AP) — The U.S. Justice Division is accusing Walgreens of filling hundreds of thousands of prescriptions within the final decade and extra with out a authentic goal, together with for harmful quantities of opioids, in line with a lawsuit filed this week.
Filed within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of Illinois, the grievance says the pharmacy chain’s pharmacists stuffed managed substance prescriptions with clear crimson flags that indicated they have been extremely more likely to be illegal. Walgreens additionally systematically pressured pharmacists to fill prescriptions with out taking the time to verify their validity, in line with the grievance.
The lawsuit says Walgreens stuffed “illegal” prescriptions in violation of the federal Managed Substances Act and sought reimbursement from federal well being care packages for them in violation of the False Claims Act.
Walgreens, one of many nation’s largest pharmacy chains, with over 8,000 areas, stated in an announcement that it stands behind its pharmacists. It stated they are saying fill authentic prescriptions for Meals and Drug Administration-approved drugs written by Drug Enforcement Administration-licensed prescribers in accordance with all relevant legal guidelines and rules.
Walgreens can be accused of ignoring proof, together with from its personal pharmacists and inner information, that shops have been meting out illegal prescriptions, in line with the grievance. As well as, it allegedly disadvantaged pharmacists of essential info together with by stopping them from warning every one other about specific prescribers.
“This lawsuit seeks to carry Walgreens accountable for the numerous years that it failed to satisfy its obligations when meting out harmful opioids and different medication,” Principal Deputy Assistant Lawyer Normal Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Division’s Civil Division, stated in an announcement. “These practices allowed hundreds of thousands of opioid capsules and different managed substances to movement illegally out of Walgreens shops.”
The corporate stated it’s asking the court docket to make clear the tasks of pharmacies and pharmacists and to guard in opposition to the federal government’s try and implement arbitrary “guidelines” that don’t seem in any legislation or regulation and by no means went by way of any official rulemaking course of.
“We is not going to stand by and permit the federal government to place our pharmacists in a no-win state of affairs, attempting to adjust to “guidelines” that merely don’t exist,” Walgreens stated within the assertion.
The corporate additionally stated it has been a pacesetter in offering training and useful resource, in addition to implementing the perfect insurance policies and procedures to assist fight opioid misuse.
The DOJ filed a similar lawsuit against CVS in December. A spokesperson for that chain has stated it strongly disagrees with the allegations and what it referred to as a “false narrative” within the grievance.
Federal prosecutors have been attempting to carry firms accountable for his or her alleged roles within the U.S. dependancy and overdose disaster, with opioids tied to over 80,000 annual deaths in some latest years.
In the course of the previous decade, most of these deaths have largely been attributed to illicit fentanyl, which is laced into many unlawful medication. Prescription capsules have been the first trigger earlier.
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