Credit: Nation of Change

Big Pharma is notorious for their role in the opioid epidemic that has killed more than half a million Americans. But according to a new analysis, judges have played a major contributing role as well.

An analysis of U.S. court secrecy, conducted by Reuters, shows that by sealing evidence from the public, judges may have lengthened and deepened the epidemic.

In 2001 the first lawsuit filed by a state against a Big Pharma company that manufactured OxyContin began. West Virginia brought the suit against Purdue Pharma LP, accusing them of minimizing the drug’s risks and telling doctors that it was less addictive than other opioids.

During the discovery part of the case, thousands of internal memos from Purdue, including marketing plans and sales calls to doctors, were made available to the prosecution. This mountain of evidence convinced Judge Booker T. Stephens that the prosecution had enough material to convince a jury that Purdue was deliberately lying in their sales pitches to doctors.

The problem is, Judge Stephens sealed this information from the public after Purdue […]