Secret records about Purdue Pharma's marketing tactics for its potent opioid painkiller OxyContin must be made public after the Kentucky Supreme Court declined to review an earlier ruling, according to STAT.
The court documents were sealed in 2015 as part of a $24 million settlement between Purdue Pharma and the state of Kentucky. The sealed documents include a testimony by the former Purdue Pharma president Richard Sackler, internal emails and other company documents about its marketing and sales tactics.
The decision by the Supreme Court comes as a victory for health news website STAT, which filed a motion to unseal the records in March 2016.
"The case against Purdue was one of our first decisions when we launched STAT, and we're thrilled that the trove of documents will finally be made public," said John Henry, owner and publisher of STAT, said in the article. "As the opioid crisis continues to devastate communities across the country, it is vital that we all have more answers to so many outstanding questions about the genesis of the epidemic and Purdue’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin."