The Department of Justice (DOJ) this week sued drugstore chain Walgreens for filling “illegal” opioid prescriptions without a “legitimate” medical purpose for more than a decade.
The lawsuit is submitted On Thursday, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, a Walgreens pharmacist dispensed millions of prescriptions despite “red flags” that indicated possible illegality and dispensed prescriptions without taking the necessary time. He claimed that he pressured the pharmacist to do so. This is to “confirm its validity.”
“Walgreens allegedly ignored substantial evidence from multiple sources, including its own pharmacists and internal data, that its stores were dispensing illegal prescriptions,” the Justice Department said in a Friday press release. stated in a release.
“These actions enabled millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to illegally leave Walgreens stores,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton added in a statement. .
The government alleged that the company violated the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) by dispensing millions of illegal prescriptions. The lawsuit alleges that Walgreens, which operates more than 8,000 pharmacies across the United States, also violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by seeking reimbursement for many of its prescriptions from various federal health programs.
“These laws are critical to protecting our communities from the dangers of the opioid epidemic,” said Morris Paschall, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. “Our office will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to ensure that opioids are properly dispensed and that taxpayer funds are used only for legitimate pharmacy claims.”
The Department of Justice announced that four different whistleblowers who worked at Walgreens filed the complaint. Walgreens said it stands by pharmacists and asked the court to protect drugstore companies from the Justice Department's attempts to enforce “arbitrary rules.”
“We urge the courts to clarify the responsibilities of pharmacies and pharmacists and protect them from government attempts to enforce arbitrary ‘rules’ that are neither found in any law or regulation nor have gone through any formal rule-making process. I ask you to protect it.” said on friday.
“We will not sit back and allow the government to put pharmacists in a no-win situation by trying to force them to follow ‘rules’ that simply don’t exist,” the company said, adding: “Professionalism and integrity.” He added that he is looking forward to protecting the country. of our pharmacist. ”
The Department of Justice filed a similar lawsuit against CVS Health last month, accusing the retail giant of aiding the opioid crisis by knowingly filling illegal prescriptions to “put profits ahead of patient safety.” did.
