“Your letter’s assertion that the pharmaceutical industry caused this epidemic is – at best – a stunning oversimplification,’’ Matthew Maletta, the company’s chief legal officer, wrote in a Nov. 28 letter.

Dan Tierney, a spokesman for DeWine, said Thursday Ohio’s top legal official isn’t “commenting on any of the letters we’ve received in response to the Attorney General’s demand letter.’’

Purdue’s and Endo’s letters came in response to an Oct. 30 missive DeWine sent to makers and distributors of opioid painkillers demanding they begin settlement talks within 30 days. DeWine, a Republican who is running for governor, sent the letter as part of a plan to combat opioid abuse in his drug-ravaged state.

Drug overdoses

More than 60,000 people died in the U.S. from overdoses in 2016, and there was a five-fold increase in such deaths involving synthetic opioids -- from 3,105 in 2013 to about 20,000 in 2016, according to federal researchers.

A study in the October 2016 issue of Medical Care Journal put the economic cost of opioid overdose, abuse and dependence at $78.5 billion. Health care accounts for about one-third of the cost, while lost productivity in nonfatal cases add another $20 billion, according to the journal published by Wolters Kluwer.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that 145 Americans die daily from opioid overdoses. The epidemic cost the American economy $504 billion in 2015, which was the equivalent of 2.8 percent of gross domestic product that year, according to a report this month by the Council of Economic Advisers.

In Purdue’s letter, Barton thanked DeWine for inviting the company to help address addiction problems in Ohio. “As you know, we have been working on an expedited basis with more than 30 state attorneys general as part of a bipartisan multistate process to resolve serious issues,’’ Barton said.

Outside lawyers

Barton urged DeWine to rejoin the multistate investigation by his fellow attorneys general so the state wouldn’t have to share any recovery with outside plaintiff lawyers it hired to press its case.

“It is uncontroversial that the multistate process is the best and fastest way for states to get resources to address this crisis,’’ Barton wrote.

While the companies jousted with DeWine, they also asked a panel of federal judges in St. Louis Thursday to gather all opioid suits in one federal court.

Purdue, Johnson & Johnson and some lawyers for cities and counties that have sued want the more than 60 lawsuits filed so far in federal courts across the country to be combined for information exchanges and test trials. The consolidation is intended to save money by avoiding duplication.

U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance of Louisiana, a member of the five-judge panel, warned lawyers for states and local governments that they’d face “serious’’ legal hurdles that could derail their bid for a multibillion-dollar payout.

“There are serious threshold issues when it comes to whether these governmental entities can sue for these damages,’’ Vance told lawyers arguing the cases should be consolidated in federal courts in West Virginia, Ohio or Illinois.

“The nation is watching what we do with these cases,’’ Roland Tellis, a lawyer representing governmental entities, told the panel. The judges didn’t immediately decide where the cases will be heard.

The case is In Re: National Prescription Opioid Litigation, MDL NO. 2804, Before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (St. Louis).

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