LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced a $350 million national settlement with Publicis Health Thursday.
The settlement resolves investigations into the global marketing and communications firm’s role in the prescription opioid crisis.
As part of the settlement, Michigan will receive nearly $11.7 million to help address the crisis.
The money will give communities hardest hit by the opioid crisis more financial support for treatment and recovery, the ability to build lasting infrastructure and a better chance at saving lives.
Per the settlement, Publicis recognized the harm its conduct caused and must disclose, on a public website, thousands of internal documents detailing its work for opioid companies, including Purdue Pharma.
The company must also stop accepting client work related to opioid-based Schedule II or other Schedule II narcotics.
“The opioid crisis has devastated many communities throughout Michigan and across the entire country,” Nessel said. “As long as I am attorney general, I will do everything in my power to ensure companies like Publicis and all the others who fueled and profited from this epidemic are held accountable. The corporations who profited wildly from the devastating opioid epidemic must pay for prevention and remediation to assist the recovery of those impacted. The cost of this settlement to Publicis is nothing compared to the human cost these drugs have had on Michigan families and communities.”
Court documents show how Publicis’ work contributed to the crisis by helping Purdue Pharma and other opioid manufacturers market and sell opioids.
They also detail how Publicis acted as Purdue’s agency of record for all its branded opioid drugs, including OxyContin, even developing sales tactics that relied on farming data from recordings of personal health-related-in-office conversations between patients and providers.
The company was also instrumental in Purdue’s decision to market OxyContin to providers in patients’ health records, according to Nessel’s office.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says between the years 2000 and 2020, the state’s opioid death rate increased, on average, nearly 14% each year.
