Keller @ Large: Maura Healey On Purdue Pharma Suit, Trump Lawsuits
BOSTON (CBS) - Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey blames the founding family of a pharmaceutical company for helping create the opioid drug crisis.
She claims Purdue Pharma's "deceptive and misleading sales and marketing practices" for OxyContin led her office to a three-year investigation of the company and concluded it "wasn't selling the opioid lawfully."
"Their goal was to get as many people hooked on opioids for as long as possible," she told Jon Keller in an interview that aired Sunday on WBZ-TV.
Keller asked Healey if there is a broader issue of negligence and incompetence by federal regulators, like the FDA, which approved OxyContin.
"I don't think that's the question. I think the question is what did Purdue and its executives do in terms of controlling sales and marketing that involved deception, involved misleading the public, but also doctors and pharmacists," she said.
Purdue Pharma told CBS News in a statement: "Massachusetts' amended complaint irresponsibly and counterproductively casts every prescription of OxyContin as dangerous and illegitimate."
Healey said her office is currently investigating five other opioid manufacturers and distributors.
You can watch the entire interview in the clip above.
Keller also talked to the Attorney General about her multiple lawsuits against the Trump Administration.
"We have not lost a case yet against the Trump Administration and I think that shows how important it is that we've been in court on everything from voting to immigration to health care, on issues of gun safety laws and the like, and we're going to continue to be there as we need to," Healey said.
Keller also asked her what she thinks of the Democratic 2020 presidential candidates and would she endorse Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
"I'm not focused on this right now," Healey said. "I think we're going to have to wait and see how everything goes with all of this."
You can watch part two of the interview here:
