Purdue Pharma Caused $2.15 Trillion in U.S. Economic Damage, States Say

Purdue Pharma LP, the bankrupt maker of OxyContin painkillers, helped inflict more than $2.15 trillion in financial damage on the U.S. economy while pushing highly addictive opioids on Americans for almost two decades, four dozen states told a judge.

Almost every U.S. state and territory will seek to recover a fraction of those alleged losses in Purdue’s Chapter 11 case, which the company filed to block thousands of civil lawsuits over opioid-related deaths and injuries. New York’s losses alone total more than $165 billion, according to a joint filing by the states made public Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, New York.