Aerial view of customers entering a Walgreens store in San Pablo, California, on January 4, 2024.
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of Ministry of Justice On Friday, it was announced that it had filed a lawsuit against the pharmacy giant. walgreens Suspected of dispensing millions of illegal prescriptions.
of Ministry of Justice Walgreens said that from August 2012 to the present, it “knowingly” prescribed prescriptions that “lacking a legitimate medical purpose, were not valid, and were not issued in the ordinary course of professional practice.” Ta.
“This lawsuit addresses Walgreens’ years of failure to meet its obligations in dispensing dangerous opioids and other drugs,” said Brian Boynton, principal deputy assistant attorney general and head of the Justice Department’s civil division. This is a matter of accountability.”
Boynton said Walgreens pharmacists filled millions of prescriptions with “clear red flags that the prescriptions were likely illegal.”
Boynton said the company “systematically pressured pharmacists to fill prescriptions, including prescriptions for controlled substances, without taking the time to verify the validity of the prescriptions.” “These practices enabled millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to illegally leave Walgreens stores.”
Some Walgreens patients died of overdoses shortly after receiving invalid prescriptions at Walgreens, the Justice Department alleges.
The 300-page lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
Walgreens said in a statement: “We ask the courts to hold pharmacies and pharmacists accountable and enforce arbitrary ‘rules’ that do not appear in any law or regulation and have not gone through any formal rule-making process. “We are asking for protection from the government’s attempts to do so.” . ”
“We will not sit back and allow the government to put pharmacists in a no-win situation by trying to follow ‘rules’ that don’t exist,” Walgreens said.
“Walgreens supports our pharmacists, who are dedicated health care professionals in the communities we serve, and supports our pharmacists, who are dedicated health care professionals in the communities we serve, and supports the legitimate use of FDA-approved medications written by DEA-approved prescribers in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.” Create a prescription.”
The complaint alleges that although Walgreens issued a written policy that reflected an understanding of its legal obligations, the company knowingly took other actions that prevented pharmacists from complying.
“By implementing policies and practices that require pharmacists to fill prescriptions expeditiously, Walgreens is prioritizing profits over safety and compliance and ensuring that pharmacists have sufficient capacity to fulfill their responsibilities.” He did not give her time or resources,” the complaint said.
“One such metric is ‘Verify by appointment time’ (VBPT), where pharmacists expect ‘waiters’ (customers waiting for prescriptions inside the pharmacy store) to fill prescriptions within 15 minutes. ,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Walgreens also tracked pharmacists who dispensed controlled substances at low rates through ‘non-dispensing pharmacist reports,'” the complaint said.
“One of the reasons Walgreens created this metric was because we believed pharmacists who refused prescriptions for controlled substances undermined Walgreens customer service.”
