Opioid Justice Team: Ad Hoc Committee for babies born opioid-dependent now represented in Purdue bankruptcy proceedings

Attorneys representing an Ad Hoc Committee for Neo-Natal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) babies and children filed a statement before U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, NY notifying the Purdue debtors that the needs of the most innocent victims in America's prescription opioid epidemic cannot be forgotten as a $12 billion settlement is considered.

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Opioid Justice Team

Nov 11, 2019, 20:00 ET

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Nov. 11, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Attorneys representing an Ad Hoc Committee for Neo-Natal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) babies and children filed a statement before U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, NY notifying the Purdue debtors that the needs of the most innocent victims in America's prescription opioid epidemic cannot be forgotten as a $12 billion settlement is considered.

Tartar Krinsky & Drogin's Scott Markowitz will act as legal counsel to the Ad Hoc NAS Committee composed of Attorneys Scott Bickford, Kent Harrison Robbins and Donald Creadore.

"The NAS Baby Ad Hoc Committee, which will work cooperatively with the Debtor and the Unsecured Creditors Committee, will represent the guardians who are responsible for the babies diagnosed at birth with Neo-Natal Abstinence Syndrome due solely to their birth mother's use during pregnancy of opioids manufactured by Purdue among other entities," Counsel informed the Court.

The NAS Ad Hoc Committee will serve several objectives, according to Mr. Bickford, most notably being:

  • To recover damages for the personal injuries suffered by children suffering from opioid use by their mother's during pregnancy; and
  • To seek establishment of a nationwide medical monitoring program to be overseen by a trust administrator that will improve the health and outcomes for hundreds of thousands of NAS infants and children as they age.

The members of the NAS Ad Hoc Committee are attorneys who have committed thousands of hours of their time to zealously represent the interests of this unique group of NAS claimants, filing class actions covering 34 individual states and establishing direct medical links between in-vitro opioid exposure and birth defects such as Spina Bifida, Cleft Palate, heart, head and gastro-intestinal deformities, and long-term development issues such as speech, motor skill and learning disabilities, said Mr. Bickford.

"The members of this Ad Hoc Committee are the de facto experts representing the legal interests of NAS babies," Mr. Bickford said.    

"Prescription opioids were thrust onto the American public in the mid-1990s, and the epidemic these drugs have spawned has many aspects but the most overlooked is the incidence of NAS in newborns," said Mr. Bickford.

The Ad Hoc Committee said the NAS claims, in the aggregate, exceed the claims of all other known creditors in the Purdue bankruptcy proceedings. "These claimants are voiceless as well as faultless," said Mr. Bickford.

SOURCE Opioid Justice Team