{"id":12007,"date":"2025-06-24T23:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T23:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/12007\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T23:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T23:39:07","slug":"louisiana-files-lawsuits-alleging-pharmaceutical-giant-cvs-deceived-customers-in-text-messages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/12007\/","title":{"rendered":"Louisiana files lawsuits alleging pharmaceutical giant CVS deceived customers in text messages"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW ORLEANS (AP) \u2014 Louisiana filed several lawsuits accusing pharmaceutical giant CVS of abusing customer information and using its dominant market position to drive up drug costs and unfairly undermine independent pharmacies, the state\u2019s attorney general said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Liz Murrill began investigating CVS after the company sent out mass text messages<\/a> to thousands of residents on June 11 to lobby against legislation that took aim at its business structure. The texts warned that medication costs could go up and all CVS pharmacies in the state would close.<\/p>\n

The lawsuits, which were filed Monday in central Louisiana\u2019s St. Landry Parish, seek \u201cinjunctive relief, civil penalties and restitution,\u201d Murrill said.<\/p>\n

CVS \u201cabused customers\u2019 sensitive information to push a political message,\u201d Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said Tuesday at a press conference.<\/p>\n

He noted CVS had lobbied his wife over text via the same messaging chain normally used to notify her about picking up a prescription drug or other healthcare-related matters.<\/p>\n

One lawsuit argues that the text message lobbying constituted \u201cunfair or deceptive acts\u201d in violation of state trade law. Two Louisiana-based law firms have filed a separate class action lawsuit<\/a> against CVS over the text messages.<\/p>\n

CVS has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur communication with CVS customers, patients and members of the community was consistent with the law,\u201d CVS said in an emailed statement. \u201cWe believe it was important for people to know about a potential disruption to where they get their medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two other lawsuits allege that CVS artificially inflates prices for consumers and independent pharmacies.<\/p>\n

CVS serves as a pharmacy benefit manager \u2014 essentially an intermediary that buys medication from manufacturers and distributes drugs to pharmacies. <\/p>\n

CVS and the mail-order pharmacy Express Scripts dominate the market by processing about eight out of every 10 prescription drug claims, according to the Federal Trade Commission, which warned in a 2024 report<\/a> that this allows for \u201cinflating drug costs and squeezing Main Street pharmacies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because CVS also owns a vast network of retail pharmacies \u2014 including 119 in Louisiana \u2014 it sets the terms for how prescription drugs are sold to customers there.<\/p>\n

The proposed law that sparked the text messages from CVS had sought to ban pharmacy benefit managers like CVS from owning drug stores. The law failed to pass, but Landry has stated he will seek to revive it.<\/p>\n

In the state\u2019s litigation, Murrill alleges that CVS business structure and practices allow the company to \u201cmanipulate prices, restrict competition and channel profits internally.\u201d<\/p>\n

One lawsuit accuses CVS of \u201csystematically under-reimbursing independent Louisiana pharmacies to the point of economic hardship, while routing patients to CVS-owned facilities.\u201d The lawsuit alleges that CVS imposes \u201cunethical, unscrupulous, and exorbitantly high fees on independent pharmacies.\u201d<\/p>\n

CVS said that it should not have to pay higher rates for \u201cless efficient pharmacies\u201d and that this would lead to \u201chigher costs for consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cImportantly, CVS Pharmacy remains the lowest cost pharmacy and a critical partner in lowering prescription drug costs for Louisianans,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n

Another lawsuit argues that CVS uses its market control to exclude lower-cost drugs for \u201chigh-rebate, high-price brand drugs\u201d and other practices that \u201cdistort the drug market\u201d and \u201cdrive up costs for the state\u2019s public health programs and its citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

CVS said that its business structure allows for \u201cbetter access, affordability, and advocacy for those we serve.\u201d The company said that removing CVS pharmacies from Louisiana would increase costs to the state by more than $4.6 million.<\/p>\n

Landry said he would seek new legislation targeting CVS if existing laws were insufficient to win in court.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press\/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America<\/a> is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW ORLEANS (AP) \u2014 Louisiana filed several lawsuits accusing pharmaceutical giant CVS of abusing customer information and using…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,57,330,210,355,361,336,362,2934,363,353,12761,11825,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-12007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-general-news","10":"tag-government-programs","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-jeff-landry","13":"tag-la-state-wire","14":"tag-lawsuits","15":"tag-legal-proceedings","16":"tag-legislation","17":"tag-liz-murrill","18":"tag-louisiana","19":"tag-louisiana-state-government","20":"tag-prescription-drugs","21":"tag-u-s-news","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114740983651596013","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}