Transparency achieved: Opioid settlement payouts to local governments now public knowledge.

Local governments in the US are receiving settlement money from companies that made, distributed, or sold opioid painkillers, with more than $50 billion total in settlements from national lawsuits. KFF Health News has obtained documents showing the exact dollar amounts that local governments were allocated for 2022 and 2023, which is a crucial step in ensuring the settlements fulfill the goal of saving lives and remediating this crisis. The national opioid settlements are the second-largest public health settlement of all time, following the tobacco master settlement of the 1990s.