In this aerial view, a customer enters a Walgreens store in San Pablo, California, on January 4, 2024.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
this Ministry of Justice Said Friday to sue pharmaceutical giant walgreens Allegedly issuing millions of illegal prescriptions.
this U.S. Department of Justice It said Walgreens “knowingly” filled the prescriptions from August 2012 to the present, which “lacked a legitimate medical purpose, were invalid, and/or were not issued in the ordinary course of professional practice.”
“This lawsuit seeks to elucidate Walgreens’ years-long failure to fulfill its role in dispensing dangerous opioids and Responsibility for other medications.
Boynton said Walgreens pharmacists filled millions of prescriptions with “obvious red flags indicating they were likely illegal.”
Boynton said the company “systematically pressured pharmacists to fill prescriptions, including controlled substance prescriptions, without taking the time to confirm their effectiveness.” “These practices allowed millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to illegally exit Walgreens stores.”
Some Walgreens patients died of overdoses shortly after getting invalid prescriptions at Walgreens, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
The 300-page lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
The lawsuit alleges that despite Walgreens issuing written policies that reflected its understanding of its legal obligations, the company took other actions that knowingly prevented its pharmacists from complying with those policies.
“Walgreens prioritized profits over safety and compliance and implemented policies and practices that required pharmacists to fill prescriptions quickly, leaving pharmacists without adequate time or resources to fulfill their responsibilities,” the lawsuit states.
“One such metric is ‘Verification on Promise Time’ (VBPT), which requires pharmacists to fill prescriptions for ‘attendants’ (customers waiting for prescriptions at the pharmacy) within 15 minutes,” the lawsuit states.
“Walgreens also tracks pharmacists who dispense lower proportions of controlled substances through its ‘Non-Dispensing Pharmacist Report,'” the lawsuit states.
“Walgreen created this metric in part because it believed pharmacists who refused to fill controlled substance prescriptions were harming Walgreens’ customer service.”
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.
