Judge rules Purdue must answer questions about documents showing any link between OxyContin, birth defects
A federal judge has given a green light to lawyers representing children with birth defects — allegedly due to exposure to opioids in utero — to question Purdue Pharma over efforts to provide documents concerning any links to its addictive painkiller and birth defects.
The decision is a modest, but potentially significant victory in a long-running battle to connect OxyContin with neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, a group of conditions caused when a baby withdraws from certain drugs while exposed in the womb. NAS is most often caused by opioid use during pregnancy.
