The Opioid Industry Documents Archive (OIDA) is hosting a national symposium, Monday, May 13 through Thursday, May 16, noon-2:30 PM (ET) / 9:00 AM-11:30 AM (PT). This unique symposium offers a series of complementary panels that will demonstrate OIDA’s value in addressing fundamental questions of importance to health policy experts, archivists and historians.

For more details on speakers and how to register, please visit https://oida-resources.jhu.edu/oida-national-symposium-2024/.

OIDA staff added its newest collection, the Poppell v. Cardinal Health Litigation Documents, which consists of transcripts, interrogatories, briefs and motions, complaint and answers, orders, and trial materials.    

On March 1, 2023, a jury cleared wholesale drug distributors Cardinal Health Inc., McKesson Corporation, and J M Smith Corporation against claims that they violated Georgia’s Drug Dealer Liability Act and the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute when supplying pharmacies with opioids. The 21 plaintiffs are family members of individuals who became addicted to opioids. It was the first lawsuit to come to trial brought by individual victims of the opioid crisis against pharmaceutical companies, rather than by government entities.  

The records in this collection were provided to OIDA by the law office of Bondurant Mixson & Elmore LLP. Documents in the collection include trial and hearing transcripts, trial exhibit lists, trial witness lists, statements of fact, expert disclosures, responses to requests for production of documents, briefs in support of motion to dismiss, and orders to seal records. The documents detail the roles and responsibilities of pharmacies, pharmacists, and distributors in dispensing opioid medication within the regulatory system, specifically related to efforts to prevent drug abuse and diversion.