WASHINGTON, D.C.: An Oklahoma judge on Monday (Tuesday in Manila) ordered US health care giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to pay $572 million in damages for its role in fostering the state’s opioid addiction crisis.

In the first civil trial of a drugmaker over an epidemic that has caused hundreds of thousands of fatal overdoses, Judge Thad Balkman said prosecutors had demonstrated that J&J contributed to a “public nuisance” in its deceptive promotion of highly addictive prescription painkillers.