WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The Marathon County Board voted to join other Wisconsin counties in a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies to try and recover money lost by the county because of the opioid epidemic.
Supervisor Jim Schaefer says he believes people need to be able to show self control and argued maybe the county should go after more industries.
He said, “If we’re going to go out and sue some big pharmacy company, maybe we ought to go after the local doctors and physicians who prescribed that stuff. Maybe we ought to go after all the bartenders and the alcohol industry and the soda industry and the sugar industry and the salt industry for hypertension.”
Supervisor Sara Guild worked as a certified pharmacy technician before serving on the county board. She argued that not the doctors, but the pharmaceutical companies themselves, are the ones to blame for this issue.
“(Doctors) are taught the basics and then they’re taught to defer to the information to get educated by the pharmaceutical companies about the (medication) before the prescribe them. If they only information they were presented with is that this is good (and) this will help, then these creatures of fact are going to follow that. And that is what happened,” said Guild.
The board would approve the resolution by a 28-5 vote.
