Pharmaceutical representatives are not trained in medical sciences or patient behaviour; their only training is to hyperbole the products they are selling - like any other salesman.
Physicians are trained to know what the drugs do - their properties are well known. Like narcotics, false promotion was done thru the ages for ever - including, for e.g., Neurontin.
The sinister aspect of the promotion is the kickbacks that these doctors of medicine received.
In all the trials that have happened, not just with Oxycontin, Neurontin, etc., not one prescriber has testified that someone held a gun to their heads and forced them to write these prescriptions. Many drugs fail to reach their marketing potential as the medical community refused to use them - various reasons.
If physicians and dentists had refused to prescribe these narcotics, under any brand name, the crises would not have reached the killing magnitude they did. The production of such drugs would not have reach such industrial levels.
Instead, they went with greed.
I blame the physicians and the dentists.
The physicians (and the dentists) had the control over the drugs, and they had a finger on the pulse of the tragedy as it escalated. They pulled the reins in only when the ineffective DEA started using the tracking and punitive means that had existed decades before these outbursts.
1
The Sackler family's strip-mining of America's Citizens leaves little doubt -- we're either consumers, commodities or the collaterally-damaged.
With GOP/corporate America's stranglehold over 'our' lawmakers, best get used to it.
3
Thank Joe Biden and the state of Delaware for allowing most larger USA based corporations the most lenient rules to organize themselves and protect major investors and management first. The public and employees are considered insignificant stakeholders even though they bear the brunt of corporate misbehavior. The largest corporations should be registered by the USA to stop this problem. This was tried many years ago and Joe intervened. Yes Delaware gets a nice stream of revenue but the rest of us get screwed. I think Joe is exempted from being President for this major issue alone.
4
@Ted
state law has nothing to do with this
2
First of all, as a US Senator , Joe Biden would have no political effect on a Delaware state law. The Delaware laws concerning corporations would be promulgated by its state legislature, not Washington DC. On the other hand, too, bankruptcy is US federal law written by US Congress. So it is promulgated by 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 US Senators. I don’t see how/why Biden is singled out.
1
Reviewing the ignorance of bankruptcy is part of the irrational ire. Granted, the Sacklers may be culpable and liable for torts and damages, however Chapter 11 Bankruptcy is simply putting the process on hold and bringing the laws of the US Federal Statues and a Trustee of the US Court to sort out claims. Nobody’s claim is forfeited. However, the lawsuits of the states and other municipal entities may be delayed or diverted to other classes of claimants. Any entity may just as well sue the Sacklers as Directors and Officers of the company at any time SEPARATE of Purdue’s filing yesterday.
3
do not understand if the govt knows they transferred assets and monies to off shore countries and it is against the law for US citizens to have off shore accounts then why cant we go after the money they took out of the company and hid. also I read they are moving to Florida and will live in their Palm Beach house( near Trump) so they can avoid state and city taxes of NY and not loose their home because of bankruptcy, which is law in Florida. Wonder if the PB Country Club will keep them as members?
@manhattanista
It is not illegal for US citizens to have offshore accounts.
No, it is perfectly legal.
The Sackler family has hired former Alabama US Senator and Alabama AG Luther Strange who was active in the Republican Attorney Generals Association to represent them personally. The former Executive Director of RAGA, Jessica Medeiros Garrison, worked for Strange.
I would be leery of any deal due to his connections as a former lobbyist in DC prior to his suspect appointment to the US Senate and as AG of Alabama. Strange was involved in the BP/Transocean oil spill settlement.
3
If the societal purpose of jail is punish bad behavior and attempt to prevent similar behavior happening again, it is unquestionable that all of the relevant Sacklers should be put in jail. period.
4
@Teddy Roosevelt
No. The purpose of jail is to punish ILLEGAL behavior
2
I’m an ex-opioid addict who was hooked on Percocet and OxyContin for 12 years. During that miserable period I was continually warned by medical professionals, family and friends about the dangers of addiction so there was no one to blame but myself. It was up to me a)...recognize I had a problem....b)..get some help..c)...make sure I don’t slip back, which I haven’t.
While plaintiffs are waiting for their fantasy payday which will no doubt take years to materialize, consider following my 3 steps and stay out of my way as I’m busy living a clean, busy and productive life.
5
@Dan So you are one of those who say "if I can do it, anyone can." You sound extremely lucky. Few are as fortunate as you. These actions by the Sacklers only adds to their guilt and criminality.
1
Wow, you demand surprisingly little from the best medical system in the world...
Isn’t interesting that after moving all their money out of the USA, “surprisingly” they declared bankruptcy?
2
@RBR
They didn't move all their money out of the US, and they did not file for bankruptcy; only the company did.
How bad is the opioid addiction problem in China? I Googled the question and was surprised that I found nothing on this topic. Curious...
5
Bankruptcy? Nope. Attempted robbery on top of everything else. Take it all. Take everything that family/vulture corporation has. Let em move into trailers and enjoy their new neighbors.
4
These people should be in jail. all their money confiscated. Every last penny! If they had a single moral fiber in their bodies or a shred of human decency they would have stopped profitting of peoples sufferings and deaths 20 yrs ago. Even as the thousands of deaths kept piling up they were more concerned with padding their bank accounts than than stopping the trail of destruction they were leaving behind! Make no mistake they knew what they were doing. Now its just how much they can hide and keep.
2
China is the new Purdue Pharma.
May we please expand our focus to fentanyl addictions and thousands of new American deaths, mostly our young and naive?
“Fentanyl deaths driven by China sources - “the manufacturer at the top of the pyramid, Jian Zhang, remains free. He continues to produce fentanyl and other lethal substances in a laboratory in Shanghai because Chinese officials have refused to turn him over. China believes America needs to control its drug problem.” This is our issue, not theirs.“
Source: Ben Westhoff’s Fentanyl, Inc., “How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic.”
3
Ahhh. The refuge of the true conservative - bankruptcy.
Lawyer here in Chicagoland calls it "Thankruptcy".
There you have it. Market Based Economics runs out of money for lawsuits.
4
Interesting how this epidemic goes unanswered along with gun violence, rise in racist hate and self-enriching politicians and a pervert on SCOTUS just so they can ram one through. M.A.G.A.? Not if we cannot look in the mirror and change the ever increasingly ugly Dorian Gray type reflection that stares back at us.
2
Time for the bankruptcy judge to void the fraudulent transfers of monies to the Sacklers. #LockThemUp
4
Purdue has generated $31 Billion in revenue, and has had a hand in over 700,000 deaths. So, to make the owners and shareholders richer, they have laid waste to the strong and vulnerable alike for the meager value of $44,000 per life. It is impossible to measure the costs associated with the loss and suffering of the victims and their family and friends.
2
@TS
No shareholders. Private company.
2
Private companies have shareholders. If it is a corporation , then it has capital stock which are apportioned by shares to its investors/owners.
1
@Suburban Cowboy
It's an LP
Thanks to politicians like Biden, businesses can relatively easily get a fresh start via bankruptcy but not working people.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2019/5/6/18518381/baccpa-bankruptcy-bill-2005-biden-warren
2
Thanks to Republicans Corporations are considered individuals... person, people.
1
Justice for all?
This should be redacted from the Pledge of Allegiance.
4
I will refuse to believe that corporations deserve the same rights as human beings until one of them is given the death penalty.
9
Imagine how upset people would be if a black man made billions from selling addictive drugs, filed bankruptcy to keep the $1B he secretly transferred away, and skated without so much as a grand jury for felony charges related to the tens of thousands of deaths caused by his drug dealing.
15
"In a statement, the Sackler family expressed 'deep compassion for the victims of the opioid crisis,'"
That such as obvious lie that it's insulting.
10
Where’s the Sackler Family pictured? How come every article related to this topic only shows Purdue Pharma buildings?
This isn’t an abstract entity committing crimes. Purdue Pharma is going bankrupt because of the Sackler Family’s actions. You should show their faces.
If Koch Industries went bankrupt, wouldn’t you show a pic of the Koch Brothers?
13
@M.
Yes, of course. Just like when GM and Chrysler filed bankruptcy and everyone clamored for the NYT to show pictures of all the shareholders. Not.
3
@M.
Paste their photos everywhere so everyone can recognize them and shame them publicly. No place to hide.
1
@GMooG. Unlike PP those corporations were actually approaching bankruptcy. As you well know PP is a privately held pharmaceutical company. Please stop your campaign of misinformation claiming that PP is separate from the Sackler family.
1
Now it is time to go after the Sacklers!
7
Ahh. The kleptocracy is alive and well in its favorite nation. Personal bankruptcy is not allowed even if you're drowning in student or medical debt, but the corporate shysters can declare it on a whim, ie. see Taj Mahal casino, Trump Castle Hotel & Casino, Trump Plaza Casino, Trump Plaza Hotel, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, Trump Entertainment Resorts, as well as the Sacklers.
Hey, let's keep paying those taxes that help these guys stay in their lofty perches. After all, wasn't it Leona Helmsley who said taxes are for the little people.
10
@GL
At least she went to jail.
1
@GL
" Personal bankruptcy is not allowed even if you're drowning in student or medical debt..."
This is 100% false.
2
it has been many years since I took Bankruptcy in law school, but to my understanding student loans cannot discharged in bankruptcy unless you can establish that paying off this debt creates an undue hardship on you and your dependents.
In other words, it is very difficult to discharge a student loan debt through bankruptcy.
2
Well one of the Sacklers just sold their apartment for $6.5m so add that to the payout. Then put them in jail so they won't need a new apartment. Whatever the family agrees to will be in their best interest. They started moving money around years before the magnitude of the problem surfaced so throw the book at them. Can't they be charged with some financial crimes as well?
6
The final settlements with the Sacklers -- whatever they amount to -- need to include an apology from them acknowledging that their activities resulted in enormous shame and embarrassment for Jews that acted to confirm some of the worst prejudices that non-Jews hold about them.
3
People who pay never admit guilt. That is what the blood money financial penalty is - hush money on both sides.
2
Amazing that so much time, energy and effort is being spent to ensure that the Sacklers maintain their wealth.
The family is nothing but drug dealers but since they are rich white people, we show them deference, if they were a family of color, their wealth would have been taken from them a long time ago.
Of course, there are a Republicans from the Red Welfare States involves and we all know that no elected Republican will ever hold a rich white person accountable for their behavior. That’s why we have a racist as President and an attempted rapist on the Supreme Court.
10
As despicable as they are, PP is not responsible for the opiate crisis. Almost every patient I have treated for opiate dependence started out with a prescription from a physician. We knew about this problem 40 years ago when I graduated. But many physicians and the giant companies most of us work for got more concerned with making money than with caring about patients as human beings. it's easy to make money prescribing addictive drugs.
7
The rich using their wealth to avoid responsibility. This is the cost of letting them pillage the working class.
6
The Sacklers and Purdue are the sacrificial lambs. The real crime was committed by the Food and Drug Administration whose prime responsibilities are to protect consumers from false claims made by pharmaceutical manufacturers to increase their sales. The data submitted for approval should have been intensely scrutinized considering the questionable claims being made of the addictive liability of Oxycontin. Whether it is generics made overseas earmarked for the U.S. or large corporate U.S. pharmaceuticals ,it is their responsibility to protect the public. Instead it has become an agency swayed by lobbists and politics. The real losers are the patients who could benefit or require opioids for pain relief. Meanwhile, the FDA allows the pharmaceutical industry and physicians to take all the heat without taking any responsibility. It doesn’t seem to me that the FDA has addressed their failure in this matter and instead acts like it doesn’t concern them.
8
@RP Murphy
If memory serves me correct, doesn't the pharmaceutical industry partially fund the FDA? Wow, talk about a conflict of interest.
2
An interesting fact about Ch 11, "The courts are required to charge a $1,167 case filing fee and a $550 miscellaneous administrative fee," this for corporations worth $billions. When we debate federal gov't welfare, the use of our Federal Courts by wealth to protect their wealth is never mentioned.
5
@Gretna Bear
Sooo, what? You think the government should charge more, so that there is less money for the creditors/victims?
Genius
1
@GMooG Ch 11 is not about going out of business, it supposedly letting u reorganize as you stiff ur creditors awhile longer !!
@Gretna Bear
1. I've been practicing bankruptcy law for over 20 years so, really, there is nothing truthful you can tell me about bankruptcy law that I don't already know;
2. What does your statement have to do with the conversation above about fees?
3. If you think you have a better system than our current chapter 11, I would love to hear about it.
3
The Sackler family will become the Dorian Gray of the billionaire class. They moved untold millions off shore and then file for bankruptcy. And as they drop their bankruptcy papers, they express concern for the grieving families. It was the Gordon Gecko of condolences.
8
@Mary M
Surprisingly enough, the man whose life the character Gordon Gecko was modeled after in Wall Street(Asher Edelman), actually had an epiphany and in 2016 supported Bernie Sanders and his policies and in television interviews shocked the business community with his announcement.
Of course, after hearing this, those on Wall Street heads exploded. I doubt the Sacklers will announce the same type of penance.
@Deus
Asher Edelman endorsed Trump
For years the Sackler family and the executives of Purdue Pharma got immensely rich by luring countless people to their deaths. Now they send out distress signals pleading poverty and we're supposed to just let them steal away in the night with their bags of loot? This bankruptcy filing should be squashed lest all payouts go to the company's outside vendors and other corporate cronies, leaving an empty bag for the many ordinary Americans deserving recompense. And while we're at it, will anyone at McKinsey & Co. be called to account for the advice it gave on optimizing opioid marketing?
4
The opioid crisis is about more than one family. It's about more than one company. But we will go down a legal black hole with this while hundreds if not thousands more die. Doesn't anybody ever look for a cause, such as the great dissatisfaction with life experienced by a large swath of our population and glamorizing the use of extremely hard drugs as relief from it? Opioid abuse is a major symptom but not the cause of the problem. If you put out the fire, there's no more smoke.
6
This family got filthy rich selling a dangerous substance so I don't feel any compassion for them. However, the stuff was only available by prescription so a lot of doctors had to write a lot of prescriptions for it. The doctors were a major part of the problem. Why is it that nobody mentions that angle?
4
@Clark Landrum. They do! Let me ask u this simple question: you have 15 min w each patient b/c now u r paid on quantity not quality....if a lot of patience (they’ve got to get tired of hearing it) walk in constantly complaining of pain, had done everything I could to help myself I’m sure a doctor would understand. Evidently you’ve never had a life long illness or injury. I’m thankfully my doc knows my situation but I’ve been with him over 30 years!
1
They already put most of their money over in Switzerland.
2
Both Bush administrators protected the Sackler family and their company from criminal and civil prosecution years ago. The family has been stashing away, hiding, tens of billions of dollars for years, illegally to secure their unbelievably wealthy lives.
The lies, falsifying of documents, and promotion of a drug that was widely known to be HIGHLY ADDICTIVE (all the while claiming the opposite) continued for decades and the family, company, and stockholders made hundreds and billions of dollars. The deaths, addiction, crimes associated with the addiction have destroyed millions of lives of so many people, all for the sake of profits.
The mountains of evidence that has been accumulated over decades proves without a doubt all of the crimes committed. These are in no way “allegations.” Every single company should be forfeited, every single penny and piece of property the Sackler family, along with the previous executives and others, has should be confiscated. And every single one of them should be imprisoned. None of them should have any say in anything.
Opioids are a necessary medication for many medical purposes. I myself take the generic form of OxyContin, and I thank God I’m responsible and don’t have an addictive personality, and I don’t know what I would do without them to help with my pain, but I am a slim exemption to the rule. But it is time the government and the companies involved in the epidemic pay for what they did. No more protecting the wealthy.
3
Hey... smart move! We all knew this would happen; well, I did, anyway.
Has the Purdue Pharma CEO and the entire Executive board been hauled out in handcuffs to await their trial yet?
Just kidding of course, this is the U.S. and we ignore white collar crime.
9
@Hal .. I was once told that Capitalism is the American national religion ..
@Hal
Yep, just like the banks in 2008. Privatize the profits and "socialize" the losses. (and these folks still hate socialism?) What a joke.
1
The Sacklers "deep compassion for the victims of the opioid crisis" has a hollow ring to it. Take the families entire net worth, give them FEMA trailers to live in and tell then to go out and get themselves real jobs. They should be grateful that they are not all in prison, most drug peddlers are.
2
Best response to these hucksters and con artists
1
Capitalism at it's worst. First break laws and then when you get caught file bankruptcy. I am hoping against hope that CEO of Purdue will go to prison.
2
Billionaire bankruptcy is different than regular people bankruptcy isn't it? A regular person must completely liquidate all their assets, all except the literal shirt on their back.
The Sacklers seem to be retaining the bulk of their billions.
4
@CJ
The Sacklers haven't filed for bankruptcy.
1
@GMooG I see you like to play with words as if it’s all just a game and no one gets hurt. PP was the vehicle for the Sackler family’s racketeering operation. Are you trying to say corporations aren’t really people?
1
@CJ
That is what money and influence buys(good lawyers and sympathetic judges) AND a two tier justice system , one for the wealthy and the second for all the rest of the "peasants".
If Purdue Pharma can be sued for the poplularity of Oxycontin
then... every tobacco - food - liquor - and consumer chemical company can be deemed appropriate for what is plain and simply a cash shakedown that will - betcha - provide little to no
help for the victims (i.e. voulnteers)
2
How do you file for bankruptcy when you're clearly not bankrupt?
3
@matty
What is the basis for your statement that Purdue is not bankrupt?
We must figure out why the FDA and DEA were derailed and by whom from doing their jobs and remove those impediments. I want an all-hands transparent investigation. This should be a non-partisan investigation handled by professionals that have no conflicts with Big Pharma. Get it done.
1
I can't get oxycontin for my pain. My pain is real and disables me. My doctor refused to prescribe it because it is habit forming. So many people who have real pain will suffer. Drug addiction will always be a problem in this country. I tried marijuana and it helped my pain but it is illegal mainly because the drug companies thrust too much money at politicians to keep it illegal. Shameful. I feel bad for the people who require oxy. Everything can be abused. Alcohol? Cigarettes? Chocolate? What next?
28
@Sharon, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry hate marijuana because it works and anyone can grow it in their yard. They have been one huge factor to explain why marijuana has been illegal for the last several decades. For profit healthcare absolutely cannot allow for people to treat themselves. It must have control.
8
I've never understood the advertising on TV telling me to ask my doctor to prescribe their medication for me. Shouldn't the doctor already know what to prescribe? I can't ask my doctor for sleeping pills or tranquilizers. Why should I be able to ask him for a particular pain medication? Makes no sense to me at all.
4
I have always wondered the same thing. An informed doctor should know about the medications hawked on TV. The misleading ads always show happy young people frolicking perhaps to encourage taking a medication with bad side effects. The ads like all doctor and lawyer ads should be banned. They are useless except as a source of advertising money. They polute the airwaves and disceive. Anything for a buck in America! What a country.
3
@Sharon Conway
It is about selling drugs to people and maximizing profits, bottom line. 5 BILLION a year in advertising money paid to the media to keep them quiet about questioning the whole process. America is one of only TWO countries in the world that allow it. It is like America is the only one of the industrialized nations that doesn't have some form of a universal healthcare system that would ultimately bring all this "stuff" under some sort of control.
It is now "laissez-faire" among the industry in America and they can do what they want. Money and lobbyists get a great return on their "investment".
@Deus
I am glad that I will not have to witness how America, for that matter the world, turns out in the 50 years. It was not this crazy 50 years ago, very nice actually. It took about thirty to mess it up with crass mercantilism.
It looks like the Sacklers are rushing to limit their liability, especially before more states and other entities can sue them. They should not be allowed to file for bankruptcy until all suits are settled. All those billions they are trying to hide and protect should be on the table in the lawsuits against them.
8
I thought that directly preceding (6 months?) bankruptcy filing, it was not legal for a corporation OR individuals to move, sell, pay off or protect assets. Given the Purdue Pharma and Sackler family assets "protection," is this not subterfuge?
7
@Truth in Bankruptcy
Your handle is ironic, because everything you say about bankruptcy is wrong
i hope the bankruptcy court sees this for what it is - a slimy attempt by the sackler family to squirm out of te obligations it will have to pay when the courts will enter judgements for awards to the plaintiffs in the opiate abuses cases and i also hope the states won't cave in to this deceptive ploy.
i knew you could file for court protection against creditors under bankruptcy law but are there any creditors yet? are the judgments in excess of the company's assets?
then there is the question of whether or not the sackler family fraudulently conveyed assets to other entities to shield them from potential judgments and awards. if the answer is yes, was that a criminal act for which those involved could be incarcerated?
there is a legitimate need for pain medication and it was current generations of the family that have gorged themselves at the trough of value the sale of opiates created.
many are involved beyond the family - they should all suffer the consequences for their actions.
it will take more than money to satisfy the aggrieved.
7
Many years ago when my stepfather's foundry and engineering business failed after a long battle against the effects of Thatcher's economic war on the status quo, the bank came in and repossessed his car. As he went off to catch the bus home the union representative jokingly told him that it's usually the case that the chairman drives off in his Rolls Royce.
This illustrates the inherent problem of the corporate shield something that needs to be addressed. My stepfather was a dedicated foundry man who had his life invested in his business, who tried his best to serve his town and his employees, but modern large corporations are detached from this reality. Their overpaid executives don't serve their communities, or even their customers. The corporation exists primarily as a vehicle for self-enrichment and shareholder value. It is quite wrong that the directors, possibly in anticipation of adversity over the horizon, should be able to syphon off the company's capital as has been alleged by the NYT in previous reporting in the case of this company. Legal avenues need to exist to reclaim the salaries, dividends and profits taken by the executives which have been accumulated on the suffering of their customers.
11
Let me make this very simple, the US citizen does not need $600 a bottle branded OxyContin. No one needs it, other than the profiteers at Purdue. Ask yourselves why these old drugs are still branded, why the fda continues to stop generic equivalents. Don’t trust these people, the 2007 settlement for a record fine didn’t stop them. They should be incarcerated, all of them.
12
@Harry B
Over and over, we see very clearly how money totally corrupts the system and government so drugs like this and their makers can get away "scott free" with their influence and actions. It was only some states that saw the very real result of this crisis and its strain on their healthcare system, did they decide to actually do something about it and the courts were their ultimate vehicle to do it.
The healthcare industry, in terms of dollars, has taken over the NUMBER ONE position in DC as its most influential lobbyist and for those in which it has still not sunk in, this is why presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the only real presidential hopefuls who have stated very clearly that the entire system and the approach to keeping corporations in check must be totally overhauled, NOT, the slow moving, so-called pragmatic, approach taken by centrist, moderate, Corporate/establishment democrats whose "do little" approach to change allows this to continue all because they answer to their donors , not their constituents. Keep electing moderate/centrists who take money from corporate donors of all types, NOTHING will ever get done to change the outcomes.
Rest assured, when it comes to corporate malfeasance, this is only the "tip of the iceberg" because Trump and his "Trumpublicans" allow it.
4
Drug dealers are sent to prison for their crimes, correct?
19
@Ziggy
The drugs that dealers sell are not approved by the FDA, regulated by the DEA, and prescribed by doctors, correct?
2
@GMooG .. which makes it worse ..
1
@GMooG
Clearly, from time to time even the FDA approves questionable drugs and has recalls and as far as doctors are concerned they are only as informed about the drug they are prescribing as the information they get from the company itself that sold it to them.
'White Collar Crime.' This has been a pet peeve of mine for years. And this story is why. I have been for putting CEO's in jail when their companies act as criminal gangs. I am always met with "What good is having more people in jail, just fine them." This is the pattern. Collect massive profits from criminal actions. Years in court fighting the charges. Either whittle down the fines or when caught red handed declare bankruptcy. Either way they walk away rich and free. The supreme court declares that corporations deserve the same free speech rights as an individual. When in comes to criminal activities it's "It's a corporation, it's not a person." It's time to bring the hammer down on these companies to send a message. Lock them up.
144
@KJ Peters Don't forget the FDA. As part of their approval process for this drug they accepted anecdotal evidence. Really? Drug approvals "usually" are all about numbers so who was in on the fix?
11
@KJ Peters Question. Are these fines tax deductible? That should be against the law. Otherwise it is the American public who pays for their actions.
2
@CARL E
You will have to check with a CPA for that answer. I do know that the Trump Corp. struck a deal with local Florida courts, when found guilty of some local law violation, struck a deal to give to a charity and of course, wrote it off. A small example of how the rich get away with things that would put the ordinary sap in jail. Two systems of justice.
1
This is a nice way to evade the responsibility on selling a product that was proven to create addiction. This bankruptcy should not be accepted, specially since the company and its administrators duly pursued the commercialization of these drugs and they must face the effects of their decisions. unfortunately, shareholders and those who benefit from this scheme would be left untouched, even as they are direct beneficiaries of the scheme.
6
@Camilo Blanco, I respectfully disagree with part of your premise. The product was created to be an effective pain reliever in extreme circumstances, and it is indeed that. Its over-prescription and abuse go beyond its stated purpose, and irresponsible parties are to be properly held responsible for that.
On a personal level, I had surgery that required opioids for extreme post-operative pain, but I was also taught how to wean myself off them. The prescription was for two weeks, renewable for two more had I needed it. Thanks to the post-op education, I took my last opioid at nine days, and over-the-counter pain relief sufficed for the duration. The takeaway: use as directed only for as long as necessary.
6
@CP
The only problem with your argument is, drugs react differently with different people, hence, the issues and tragedies that occurred.
Democrat controlled states hold out for stricter enforcement against the adminstrator of a national drug abuse epidemic. Republicans soft on drug abuse industry are they? Yes.
5
Typical America: steal a candy bar get killed by the police.
Corporate Kill thousands, get out of jail free card and a few billions for play time.
And fore knowledge of the crime? Nothing.
Home of the corporate titans
Land of the slaves.
13
It's a mad scramble now to save their money or at least as much as they can. Shifting monies to untouchable accounts and now using bankruptcy to try and save more.
Epstein did similar financial maneuvers before his suicide to 'save' his money for his family and out of the hands of the victims.
All this strategy to save money. To save their precious gold. To save themselves from being accountable with financial penalties.
Another instance where the law is functioning completely differently for the 1%. For the rest of us, the courts would come after our homes and cars after our bank account. The billionaires will be allowed to live as they always do with no threat.
With the recent settlement of J&J, stocks ROSE the day after because the amount wasn't 'that bad'. Wall Street runs to self interest over justice and equality and accountability every time.
Greed is good. That's as far as their morals go.
11
It’s crazy that if you’re black in America you can, like Sandra Bland, die, because you changed lanes with out signaling. At the same time, the Sacklers made BILLIONS on OxyContin. BILLIONS! So very many people have over dosed and died or become addicted to the drugs the Sacklers pushed. Yet, the Sackler Family doesn’t even have to admit guilt. They will remain billionaires and they will be untouched by this tragedy.
If you’re the Sacklers your life will be calm and comfortable and above the tragedy of the Opioid Crisis. For you, OxyContin is a blessing never a curse. Every time I hear of a minority sent to jail for failing to pay a fine or for some other minor breach, I will think of this family which is denied nothing, and which oversaw and profited from the reckless sale of Opiates, living its beautiful lives untouched by the pain and suffering. Jail for them unimaginable. Never, never will the rich face their misdeeds.
13
Isn’t it great to be successful Americans? Why you can legitimately and knowingly promote drugs in excess killing thousands then when caught and told they will be held accountable they file for bankruptcy. Isn’t that great? We even have laws to protect our most heinous criminals. As long as you are overflowing with dollars made at the death of others you have an out to keep all. Criminal acts for the less financially secure. Business as usual for the rich.
It’s time for a Trumpian tweetstorm — something along the lines of “very fine people, on both sides.”
7
So when are the Sacklers going to jail?
2
legalize cannabis, problem solved
5
I want to know who they settled with. Where does this money go? To the victims? To the families of those that have died? No, to state governments? How does that make sense? Thier legislations allowed this to happens. They said it was ok and legal now they changed thier mind, so they get paid. Ridiculous, the doctors who prescribed this garbage should be charged and the victims should be paid.Its never been a secret the opiates are horribly addicting, And that junkies will abuse the hell out if any type of opiate. But theses doctors overprescribed all of us anyway. How is that ok. I cant speak for all junkies. But my problem began when i was a teenager. I cut one of my fingers off at work.They prescribed me oxy to take three to four times a day every day for 4 months. Repeatedly my doctor assured me if i took them as prescribed i wouldnt get addicted and would have no problem when it was time to get off them. This was just a lie and he knew it. Anyone who prescribes theses drugs should and does understand, they just dont care. Anyway that was 14 years ago. I have been fighting with addiction ever since. I never got off them because the doctor didnt care he just wanted to get paid. Will i get paid, or my family for the life they stole from us? No instead they will pay the people whose laws allowed it to happen? No they should be charged along with the pill pushing doctors. Not the people who filled the demand, for a product pushed on us by doctors hungry for a bonus.
4
@Max Power,
I'm sorry for your struggle and wish you good health.
Unfortunately I heard on the radio yesterday that individuals would likely not receive money; that much of the money would go toward rehabilitation services, clinics, etc. I don't know how true that is but it makes sense - although I don't agree with it.
The lawyers, of course, will get paid, but the victims might not. And of course the Sackler family will live on an island with their few billions they've stashed away.
3
@JL22 oh, see i heard that state and local gvts of communities hit hard would get the money. Im not angry if it goes towards help and rehab and even just more readily available information for people. Anything to help fight this horrible drug. Now if they could just get the people actually responsible. Im sorry but if a doctor isnt smart enough to know how addicting something as strong as oxycontin is then they have no business prescribing it. It's negligent to say the least.
As a physician I can tell you that the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is largely responsible for the opioid crisis as in 2001 they made pain the 5th vital sign forcing healthcare providers to treat it aggressively. Healthcare organizations that failed to do so were cited and penalized by the accreditation organization. Purdue Pharma and the Sackler Family did not act alone in a vacuum. Why is JCAHO not also being held accountable for the opioid crisis?
279
@Deborah Kimmel Good question.
11
Good question, the government never takes responsibility, they write the laws and enforce the laws, how convenient for them.
13
@Deborah Kimmel
I worked in a psych/addiction treatment hospital during this time frame. I do remember this Joint Commission's over-push on pain management and questioned it then.
37
Bankruptcy for individuals faced by intractable medical expenses is a tragedy. Bankruptcy in the corporate world is a bad joke that allows corporations to dodge their responsibilities and continue to operate as normal after doing so.
There is so much wrong with this picture it’s hard to count.
378
@Barbara8101
Individuals can't so much as have student loans dismissed, while corporations walk away with profits gained from intentionally sentencing millions to the horror of addiction and death.
You are right that the wrongs here are countless.
103
@Barbara8101. It is our law that individuals who declare bankruptcy may be burdened by their circumstances, but they can try to reclaim their lives. We did away with debtor’s prisons for individuals long, long ago. And later, corporations were indemnified, and able to reclaim their lives. It is the law.
7
@Wanda Corporation have "lives"? They are simply a legal construct - nothing more.
The law can be corrupted and is.
Corporations are NOT people.
20
And the doctors that wrote the prescriptions? The addicts that stole and lied for the drug? It's not just bad execs hiding data (although it's certainly that). We go all-in for justice with such a zeal at times that we lose steam and the big picture and lose the ability to put in place proper fixes going forward. I also wonder, if we lose a large pharmaceutical does it mean we're more reliant on drugs made in India, with God-knows-what ingredients, rat particles, mold, etc.?
8
The Sacklers are the worst form of humanity, one that benefits from the suffering of others. Their is no ignorance of their offense. They transferred wealth knowing the law was coming for it, to shield themselves. I believe that they should lose everything, and be put in jail. Their corporate interests need to be dissolved, with all returns used to compensate victims.
16
How wonderful that the rich pay less in tax, can market themselves using tax-free $$ via charitable donations. (IMO it ain't charity unless you paid the ta, simply a tax dodge.)
Thus far unmentioned and rarely mentioned again is the GWBush era legislation that made it illegal for Medicare and I assume Medicaid to negotiate drug prices: so the taxpayers paid fir the drugs, paid for the tax-free charitable donations, paid for the post addiction treatment... the bill goes on.
How much per victim (how do we define victim -- the dead or the addicted) is in the settlement. (Once, I heard 300K which somehow becames less than 100K -- not much.) The largest group of victims are the taxpayers of course.
CBS 50 Minutes last nite revealed that highly toxic fentanyl has replaced OxyC in terms of drugs sold illegally to addicts shipped via the US Postal System (which doesn't check). The Chinese men at the head of the company that produces and sends the drug to the USA are known to all authorities (assuming they watch 60 Minutes). The "crisis" continues with or without the Sacklers -- yes, they should lose their fortune and yes, our entire tax system, fixation on Wall Street should go bye bye -- but getting rid of the 2003 law vis a vis drugs thus far I have not seen discussed in the debates. Certain rules have to be changed and in the case of the USPS enforced.
5
Everyone realizes that the laws which allow these types of criminals to remain solvent and free can and must be
changed if the legal system wants to use the word "justice" in any remote capacity. It doesn't need to take 10 years, or an appeal or a resolution. When the government wants to punish the average guy, usually with jail, a lifetime record,prison expenses, etc a municipal judge has no problem dishing it out.
What's the issue, besides $$$, here- as if there is any.
3
So, after Purdue has used federal funding for research, gotten such liberal benefits from corporate tax laws, and ripped the people off, now we see displayed in full color the way the corporate law allows them to avoid any harm at all, the bankruptcy. In other words, they get to walk Scot free from their obligations.
Scrap the corporate laws and redo them! Is there any politician listening?
7
@Victor Edwards
The things you complain of do not happen in bankruptcy. There is a world of misinformation out there and uninformed comments like yours only add to it.
The family/owners should be criminally prosecuted. They are hiding their money so they can fend off the families, in civil suits, of those they have killed. This is an obvious example of corporations running the government, instead of the people. Find out if any of YOUR elected officials, top to bottom, have been taking big pharma money, then kick them to the curb. Get rid of Republican statehouses, while you are at it.
7
The Sacklers need to be offered immunity in return for full disclosure and complete disgorgement. Lets be realistic here - anything less will result in a long drawn out fight with a feeding frenzy of lawyers. Their position and status is now ruined.
Failure to comply with disclosure and disgorgement means prison. keep it simple - get the money, forget revenge.
1
Also lets not foeget about the small and simple fact that 98 percent of the wolds opium comes from Afghanistan where crazy drug lords grow the drugs and ship them out to the world. All under the protection of and guidance by the us military. In other words they already got paid by your pain. Without them there are no opiates here and mostly everywhere. But they are getting paid for this company distributing the drugs that they worked so hard to get here. Come on this is just dumb. Give that money to the victims, not the victors.
1
They are drug pushers and the cause of untold addiction misery and deaths throughout the country. And they are allowed to declare bankruptcy? I’m looking for accountability and yes jail time for those who led too many down the rabbit hole of addiction. They lied and covered up and intentionally obfuscated their crimes. This deal doesn’t feel like justice to me.
2
Here's another comment about our quack doctors. First off they are not to blame for being badly educated by our corrupt greedy drug companies but they are to blame for their sheer arrogance blaming the patient for everything. Over and over regardless of what is wrong with you medically if a doctor cannot figure it out more often than not they will just say the patient is lying or needs to see a shrink. Let's keep in mind that our current health care system is still our third leading cause of death and our number cause of bankruptcy something our media refuses to acknowledge. Why?
2
Capitalism is good - maybe even the best of all financial systems - until it isn't...........
This is an example of the isn't - when people, businesses try and succeed in gaming the system......
Looking for and finding loopholes to satisfy one's greed can, will and has destroyed many economic systems and governments........
Greed is and always has been man's Achilles weakness.....
Purdue Pharma is but the latest egregious example.......
2
Anyone one who equates laws with justice is a fool. Justice is determined by money not laws.
3
Although I sympathize with the victims of addiction of any sort, where was all this outrage when the crack cocaine epidemic was decimating Black and Brown communities? As I recall, crack addicts were pejoratively referred to as crackheads, and looked upon as vermin---a plague to society. Rather than empathy, they got "jut say no!" and "lock 'em up!" The herculean government response to Americans' opiod abuse (pursuing pharma and even physicians) reveals, once again, that, in America, some lives are valued more than others. It's a bitter pill to swallow.
5
I love the smell of fraudulent conveyance in the morning!
2
@Patron Anejo
Most likely because you do not understand what a fraudulent conveyance is.
2
This is the reason young America is rejecting capitalism. Corporations innately have no civic duty. They should face the music they wrote.
105
It won’t help those whose lives were ended or blighted by the Sackler’s lust for money, but I hope governments and communities will swiftly remove the Sackler name from public buildings, etc. Starting with the Arthur Sackler Gallery in DC.
49
@Nancy
It's hard to believe that any institution still displays these pushers' name.
As far as the money which the institutions received goes, it should be given to centers which treat the opiod plague which these pushers fostered.
7
To the casual observer, Purdue appears to be a properly culpable party in the opioid crisis. But just below the headlines, it is clear that the company is being scapegoated for a mess born of multiple parents, including many of the same politicians and law enforcement agencies leading the charge against the company.
The public narrative is that Purdue and other manufacturers misled the public about the addictive qualities of these drugs. In reality, the data show the drugs to be relatively safe as prescribed, except for persons already predisposed to use marijuana, meth and other illicit drugs. Moreover, the manufacturers hardly can be blamed for how these drugs fall into the hands of abusers. The blame for that falls upon unscrupulous doctors, the proliferation of phony pain clinics and the failure of law enforcement to quell theft and illegal importation.
Politicians are happy to scapegoat the extravagant Sackler family and to congratulate themselves on taking their scalps. After all it falls neatly into our modern hatred of the wealthy. But we keep having these problems because the politicians always manage to shift the blame without ever acknowledging their own roles in the mess.
7
@AR Clayboy
The evidence uncovered by the Attorney General's office shows that the company hired hundreds of sales representatives and taught them false claims to improve the sale of Oxy, including misleading doctors on the risks of addiction and fatal overdose. This is heavily documented.
Are there some bad actors downstream? Unscrupulous doctors? Phony clinics? Poor parenting? Yes. But focusing blame on them implies that all actions regardless of context share a moral equivalency. And since they too acted in poor faith, all criticism is hypocritical and misplaced. This line of thinking doesn’t solve the problem at hand - which is that a company broke the law and marketed an opioid as being far less addictive than it is. In many cases of downstream malfeasance, bad actors might even be able to absolve their actions behind Purdue's fraudulent origin of false, off-label marketing.
3
The bankruptcy will most likely go forward unless fraudulent conveyance can be proven ending the proceedings. But that, after all, is a civil action that will not harm the Sacklers in any meaningful way. The will remain billionaires many times over and likely remain active in Big Pharma.
That there is no mention of bringing family members and their employees to court to face charges of criminal conspiracy and negligent homicide is telling. The US and the states have imprisoned tens of thousands for possessing and selling drugs, some manufactured by the Sackler's Purdue Pharma.
The message sent is very clear.
7
This is another reason why Elizabeth Warren is rising in the polls. Once again, the justice system leans in favor of corporations and the wealthy.
13
Of course. The Trump Maneuver. Once you’ve ran a business into the ground, and/or been Caught at nefarious activities, file for Bankruptcy. Repeat as needed.
What a Country.
23
this trascends trump: this is another example of corporate responsibility demonstrated by asbestos manufacturers and now oxy manufacturers. the free market at its best.
2
And what share of the blame should be handed to the politicians' and the war on drugs? Portugal appears to be solving its opioid problem by focusing on public health instead of incarceration. The death toll in Portugal from drug abuse is but a small fraction of the one in the States. Alternate solutions have been proposed for years, think of the Consumers Union book Licit and Illicit Drugs. Yet the only response to gain traction has been to turn the legal system into a cudgel used quite unsuccessfully against the victims in an attempt to force change.
12
There're a few comments laying the blame on physicians as complicit in the opioid crisis.
Whereas there have been a few doctors who have been involved in criminal distribution of opioid meds, the vast majority of physicians have nothing to do with creating, perpetuating or worsening the crisis.
As Dr. Kimmel mentioned in her comment below, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) in response to public demand forced hospitals to adopt 'pain' as a 'vital sign' like pulse, BP etc. Doctors and hospitals were thereafter rated on patient satisfaction especially w.r.t pain and heavy monetary penalties to the tune of millions of dollars were imposed upon hospitals.
Moreover, patients were aggressively targeted by big Pharma through ads that their pills were a magic panacea for their chronic pain. Too often, the public underestimates the intense pressure this places on the physician. I've had patients, families and even their legal representative threaten me on occasion where I have denied inappropriate requests for opioid meds.
Physicians have no desire to create a generation of opioid addicts, and the vast majority of patients have no desire to become addicted either. Once again Big Pharma has gotten away with exploiting US citizens with the support and complicity of elected US officials...
24
@Shahbaby
Not from my research on this topic. The Sackler Family funded a Center at Tufts that worked on the subject of pain. How kind of them! This department and its head developed the smiley face pain management tool we see everywhere in the medical system. This was used to push the concept of pain as a vital sign not for diagnosis but viola for pain coverage.
I still remember the pain of the sickle cell anemia patient on the medical floor back in 1981. But I also remember my family medical relatives use ofpain as a tool and specifically not wanting complete pain symptom removal. And it was out of compassion to help heal versus just use as a masking tool.
The veritable onslaught of pain system advertising through out the field bleeding into every day life caused the concept of Do no harm to be completely and utterly pushed aside. So much for the Medical Hall of Fame and it’s honors.
4
@Shahbaby
Washington Post has been publishing a series of deep dives into the Opioid travesty in Virginia. The Doctors in some of these cases were criminally complicit. To deter others from succumbing to the temptation to pay off their debts, sustain themselves, or accrue wealth-the Doctors need to be held to account. Subsequent to this crisis, I've heard of two doctor visits where the doctor-without an exam-simply asked what drug are you seeking? This may be more prevalent than we recognize.
10
I stopped agreeing with you in that the docs were not complicit. Through their training they knew the dangers of opioids. I'm a nurse, and I know the dangers of opioids. MD's have far more education and training than I do.
In nursing school we had to double glove to administer fentanyl patches. There is an entire protocol to remove and replace the patches on our patients and then dispose of the used patch. Fentanyl was/is the last resort for cancer patients who, already medicated with morphine, experience breakthrough, intractable pain.
Yes, the pharma companies aggressively marketed the meds and must held responsible for downplaying their dangers. But MD's, with extensive scientific backgrounds, were not ignorant to their dangers. They were incentivized by big pharma and the hospitals, as well. There's more than enough complicity to go around.
22
As with asbestos and implants, it took a team of plaintiffs lawyers to cause Purdue to account, not the federal government. Consumers should always oppose tort reform despite those annoying ads on tv.
20
Bankruptcy was already in the cards for this mess. Every person and corporation has the right to file a bankruptcy petition. A bankruptcy petition leaves Purdue in a tricky place nonetheless. Rather than in a conference room negotiating its fate, it is in the hands of a trustee who can make determinations and orders concerning all assets and liabilities. It is a stay. As if a stay of corporate execution. The claims of the actual injured are still due to be heard in civil litigation regardless. The wealth of the Sacklers as officers and directors of Purdue and any tortious or illegal activity between them is also still open to pursuit. That angle also does not vanish due to a bankruptcy.
4
@Suburban Cowboy
Haven’t they transferred a lot of their personal assets out of the country? Can a bankruptcy court go after them?
11
That money was the Sacklers’ money, the the drug manufacturers. I believe the lawsuits claims go against Purdue Pharma which is the responsible corporation. Owners of corporations hold shares under laws which provide for limited liability. If the Sacklers committed crimes, there is a different prosecutorial path, not a bankruptcy court. As officers and directors of the company, the Sacklers and any other persons on the board or in the C-suite might get sued for torts in their official roles. Presumably, the Sacklers we’re negotiating with the states and others so that they could tie up the whole bundle of liabilities into one huge settlement. However, with the revelations that keep occurring , they always had this pre-emotive Chapter 11 bankruptcy in their back pocket.
1
@Suburban Cowboy
You’re wrong. College students mired in debt don’t have the option of declaring bankruptcy.
5
Can the Sacklers be held criminally responsible? Without that, this just looks like a temporary loss, but otherwise, business as usual.
22
NYT nice work, I assume you've been leveraging the work by the WP. This scenario seems similar to Wells Fargo, but literally deadly. Leadership from on high sought profits and fostered a culture and system that procured them. The Sacklers want to be let off the hook-by simply saying "we'll stop doing it OK?" and we'll throw some of the poison begotten revenue at the victims, while keeping a tidy-opulent lifestyle supporting-sum for us.
Wouldn't it be nice if lawyers inhibited bad decisions? Corp lawyers expensive counsel most likely includes: These are the risks; this is what you can get away with; and this is how we will crush those(resource challenged- non law savvy saps) that try and stop us. The Bar is a farce.
13
@Boards
As Joe Biden replied asked about the huge total cost of medical care in the USA compared to other countries? "It's the American way!"
And the 2003 anti-negotiation for drug prices by Medicare drug law and other laws allowing patent protection for 20 years -- all promote bad behavior to generate huge profits. Many people have benefitted from the sale of this drug and even as one person pointed out from the trials now. PS what do you think Romneycare-- now the ACA means in terms of privileging and preserving the USA for lawyers and investors?
1
If Felicity Huffman “got off” with 14 days the Sacklers should at minimum serve 14 years.
20
The punishments have to be severe.
Their fortune needs to be confiscated
and they have to be sent to prison.
Anything less will just result in another Sackler trying to be Americas’s dope dealer.
29
The only thing that makes the Sackler family different than Pablo Escobar is the way they dress. Why aren’t these people in jail?
71
Strip the Sackler family to the bone of their wealth. They should not be allowed to retain any wealth given the untold misery they have caused across the nation. This would be an important example for future ' entrepreneurs '.
38
This is all ridiculous. There should be no negotiation. These drug company executives killed 60,000 people a year for more than a decade, and made 10s billions. Put them in jail and use civil forfeiture to take all of their money and belongings like you would any other criminal.
The elite class abuses us because we coddle them by making them Supreme Court Justices, and let them fly to private islands on the Lolita Express. Rather, they should be made to play by the same rules as the rest of us.
55
if corporations are people, then purdue -- and its leaders -- is a homicidal psychopath and should be treated as such.
36
I haven’t heard or seen any of these drug pushers being handcuffed and carted off to jail. We have people serving term for a lot less. If you’re a gazilionare, you get a stay out jail card.
30
Seize and freeze all their personal property-art, houses, vehicles, banks accounts, jewelry. All of it.
20
I'm sorry, but with all those who died, and the many more dying each day, why doesn't this equate to homicide from criminally negligent or reckless conduct. The owners, the entire board, and many senior executives were fully aware of the addictive properties of this category of drug, and how it could ravage and destroy lives and families.
Without jail time, it will only happen over and over again.
17
Friends a suing a contractor that ripped them off. He told the judge he's bankrupt so there's no money to be recovered...but he cant meet the proposed court date, he'll be in the Caribbean on his boat.
8
Take the money and run.
Proves up the old saying-behind every great fortune there is a great crime. These people were pushers. Why aren’t they going to jail?
12
How is it that these people get to do what they do, I wonder?
All the fancy wording that is used to describe these people makes my blood boil: company...pharmaceuticals...family business...
They manufacture drugs that are killing people. They make the drugs. They then get the drugs into the hands of those who distribute the drugs. All while raking in BILLIONS! And operating within society openly.
They are a drug cartel and should be treated as such.
18
There is a reason why they call it bankruptcy 'protection'.
I doubt anyone out there can think of a mob less deserving of 'protection' than the Sacklers. There must be a thorough and honest investigation, then criminal charges, fines, and restitution as merited.
12
Nationalize it, then liquidate it, then put the funds to proper uses.
8
Trump would offer the same advice
BANKRUPTCY
go for it
7
All money needs to be disgorged from the Sackler family. And then the criminal trials can begin.
6
My half-brother Daniel died Christmas Eve 2008 from an overdose of OxyContin.
Anger is seductive. It might even be our drug of choice as a country. But, it distorts my ability to see the full picture that created this tragedy shared across so many of our communities.
In many cases, our family members were prescribed Oxy by someone they trusted – not realizing the complex system of motivation and financial gain behind that Rx.
The same system “prescribes” that we look a certain way, so we order up cheap clothes made by people in deplorable working conditions, rushed to us by underpaid drivers in trucks spewing gas emissions into our towns. How many of us visit the nail salon, ignoring or ignorant to the grave fertility issues reported by women breathing in toxic fumes all day?
We never want to imagine that we are putting someone’s life at risk. That we might be taking away someone’s health, someone’s dream of a child. That we might make a choice that kills someone like my brother. But we consume it all. We consume culture’s anger, its fast fashion, its drugs. We are complicit to the poisoning of human beings through a huge number of completely optional choices every day.
Sound anything like the Sacklers?
They pushed the drugs that killed our family members. But we have the choice to forego our drugs of choice and spend that money and energy supporting candidates who have a chance at changing the law and news organizations that keep us honest.
RIP Daniel, 1985-2008
24
Wise thoughts. I’m sorry for your loss, Melissa
4
@Adam thank you.
1
As part of the settlement make the manufacturers become nonprofit to continue to exist. Don’t let the opportunity to take greed out of the drug industry go by.
6
Let's see if I have this straight? I walk into a bank and steal $100,000 at gunpoint. Because I have a slick lawyer and deep pockets, the district attorney offers me a plea bargain where I admit no wrongdoing and face no future charges in exchange for giving back just 10% of what I stole. Anyone else see a total perversion of justice in America where "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"? The sort of white collar racketeering exemplified by the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma will never stop unless the people in charge do hard jail time and corporations face fines that are a multiple (not a fraction) of the harm done to the public.
19
This is certainly more than a “slap on the wrist” - - - but it doesn’t begin to be adequate as recompense for the damage that has been done. And overt over-selling and over-prescribing of deadly addictive drugs should be SEVERELY punished.
4
Do we stop at pursuing the Sackler family or do we go for the other corporations that are creating other epidemics like obesity and diabetes?
12
I went to a dermatologist a few years ago for a rash -- the doc was new to me and I to her, and she operated a thriving practice in a college town, her diplomas prominently displayed, her authority seemingly well founded. It was only when I left that I realized she'd prescribed oxycodone -- for a small, minor, lightly irritating rash?! I should have reported her. Instead, I went to another doctor who correctly diagnosed the rash as an allergic reaction to toothpaste...toothpaste! That was it. I have thought about this incident a lot, how, had I been more trusting and/or predisposed to addiction, that one visit could have ruined my life.
24
I have declined those pain meds every time for me and my children ! And the physician always have an excuse why they have to give them to us ! They claim that if the Tylenol I take does not work I can’t back later and asked for pain killers because the insurance won’t pay for it . They only pay for the initial prescription?? So every time I take them then have to go out my way to take them to the court house to drop them off ! What a messed up system !!!
5
@Sue Denim - Xactly. Why are any medical professionals pushing for Big Pharm? Aha! I see stock buy-ins..
1
Outrage at Purdue Pharma is reasonably justified, but why aren't we aren't outraged at the FDA, the DEA, and the doctors that let this fester.
- OxyContin was introduced in 1995.
- In 2001, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal issued a statement urging Purdue to take action regarding abuse of Oxycontin.
- In 2003, the Drug Enforcement Administration found that Purdue's "aggressive methods" had "very much exacerbated OxyContin's widespread abuse."
- In May 2007, the company pleaded guilty to misleading the public about Oxycontin's risk of addiction.
It is now 2019.
I have confidence in the free market, but the markets must be well regulated, or they become black markets. I can't get on the "those dirty capitalists must pay" bandwagon when what they were doing was largely legal, occurring in plan sight of the regulators tasked to protect us from bad food or drugs.
9
Their future yachts will be a wee bit smaller in size. But they will still have yachts!
4
Purdue Pharma had all the sales data to see that opioids were being abused for years - what did they do with that data? They pushed to sell even more- that is why they should go to jail.
Purdue is the poster child for why we need more regulation and oversight.
16
Well, now that they have transferred as much of the company's ill gotten gains to their home asset accounts, this was expected. Of course they will be not have to worry about punishment for their horrifying greed.
3
When do we start including jail time for the top executives of companies that kill people? Shelling out billions of dollars in fines is simply, for them, the price for profits. But if corporate criminals knew that they could face jail time, maybe that could be a path towards moral integrity and a little bit of compassion.
14
The states that have signed onto the deal, Tennessee, Florida, West Virginia and Texas all have one thing in common.
Republican Governors.
That makes perfect sense.
All the death and suffering and it still comes down to party, status quo, and slavish Republican deference to business interests.
Will the people in those states ever stand up and say "Enough"?
9
Why are there no criminal charges against Purdue Pharma executives and the Sackler family member who transferred billions into secret foreign accounts to shield the money from lawsuits?
7
@Jim
Because what you said is not what happened. The transfers weren't secret, and took place years before the lawsuits.
2
My question is who in Congress owned shares of this company over the years. Also this type of bankruptcy should be outlawed. This run to save corporations when they do illegal and/or unethical actives should be a concern to our democracy. The Sackler family should be made to repay all the income they received from these activities.
12
@Tom Tracy Noone, its privately owned. In otherwords its not in the stock market. One person or entity owns it
If this bankruptcy is allowed to shield the owners and management from punishment for their criminal behavior, at the very least the patents that the company owns should be invalidated, allowing all of their patented medicines to become generic. Simply allowing Purdue to, in essence, change its name by forming a new company that is given all of the assets of Purdue Pharma really does not amount to much of a punishment.
8
@PacoC
Bankruptcy doesn't stop or "shield" punishment for criminal acts. Your confusion lies in the fact that there are no criminal charges here.
As far as the company is concerned, the proposed settlement is probably the best possible result.
But there are a lot of individuals who must also pay for what they did.
The Sackler family must be made to repay every cent that the got out of Perdue Pharma since OxyContin went on the market. The former non-family corporate executives must also contribute. And the current executives have to be prevented from getting severance pay or golden parachutes.
If the responsible individuals don't have significant consequences, then corporate misconduct is a given.
34
@John Graybeard
We will see nothing happen but this distraction tied up in the courts forever. They know that these lawmakers once they get a phone call from the White House will begin to make the cases disappear.
Look at Mr. Epstein the case is off the front pages and he crimes will dissolve into silence.
Money, greed and the knowledge they these family members knew what they were involved in destroying lives but it is all about them holding onto power and money
4
The drug that the Purdue marketed was a essentially relabeled version of oxycodone, an early twentieth century by attempt by Bayer to improve on heroin that became a niche opioid with little going for it except that had FDA approval for limited use. Purdue made a coated version. branded as OxyContin that had no real value, but through its heavy marketing and debatable advertising was pushed onto an unsuspecting public. There is nothing innocent about how the owners profited from creating addiction to an old drug with known problems. They owe more than all their wealth could repay.
76
@Harpo I wouldn’t say the coating has no value. By allowing the medicine to be slowly released into the system over time, it became a viable treatment for acute pain. Without the coating, the medicine would be absorbed at once, providing a shorter period of relief, and even more danger from overdose.
9
There are wealthy predators in our society. They own one major political party and greatly influence the other. When their misdeeds are uncovered or create a crisis for the rest of us there is an entire legal industry devoted to protecting them and their ill gotten gains. It protected the financial predators after the 2008 great recession and they have regained influence under Trumps Republican Party. Now they will protect the Sackler’s and others who profited from pushing opioid’s on an unsuspecting public. It’s the American way of unrestrained capitalism & we worship it like a religion. Well at least some of us do.
99
@John Chastain
Unlike any other health system in the "developed" world, that of the US is largely in the hands of wealthy predators. The money is so big, the beneficiaries so many, the politicians so beholden, it's almost impossible to conceive how the system could be brought into line to benefit those who need it, at prices they can afford.
15
@John Chastain You really don’t think the Democrats aren’t as much to blame, take a long look at the wallets of such as the Chuck Schumer, Pelosi and even Elizabeth Warren. You know the Democrats are as deep into this company as Republicans are.
2
@John Chastain
Nothing is illegal if you have lots and lots of $$.
5
I know I'm in the minority here and I'm sure it's because I just don't understand the whole picture, but I don't understand why the manufacturer is the one at fault for the opioid crisis. Didn't the FDA approve this drug? Don't doctors prescribe it and aren't non-scriptholders unable to procure it legally? Aren't many patients every day saved from otherwise excruciating pain because of it? How is the company that created this drug the only one at fault here? Does everyone really wish the drug had never been developed?
45
The manufacturers flat out lied about the addictive qualities of the drug, and have continued to deny any knowledge. It's not just Purdue Pharma. Google the Sackler family. These developers and manufacturers have made billions of dollars after people were already hooked. It's so sad. Yes, doctors have a role, but patients because very addicted very fast.
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@Paul in NJ
It is a minority view, but I too find it sad we fail to place blame to the *many* places that deserve it. And honestly, as an ex-drunk, I am not much sympathetic to drunks or junkies; no one forces this stuff on us, although obviously, addiction to a legally prescribed drug is far more complex and, indeed, more insidious.
All that being said, I question the entire existence of the FDA if their purpose is not to protect The People, but instead, as it seems, to give legitimacy and legal standing to drug manufacturers.
As for physicians, well, they simply do what they have been told anymore. I am not sure that Medicine is practiced like it was, but rather, it is prescribed according to SOP, which is sadly much dictated by Big Pharma or whomever else is lobbying the AMA these days. It is a corrupt mess in my opinion.
But look, as to pain, logically, some *thing* causes the pain, and that is what truly needs to be addressed, limitations in science being understood, but that is where funding needs to go: fixing actual problems. Instead, trillions are poured into pharmaceutical magics that make everyone Feel Better.
Well, if we all want nothing more than to Feel Better, I recommend tequila. You'll hate yourself later, and more problems will arise, but that's the case for all painkillers because the pain doesn't really go away until you fix the actual problem.
Opioids, etc., are just band-aids, at best, but become the or worse than the problem in the end.
15
@Paul
Purdue Pharma had access to all the sales data to see that their product was grossly over-prescribed, abused and miss used and then they used that data to drive even more use and sales of the product. That is why they are responsible.
When millions of pills were being dispensed in towns where only hundreds live- and Purdue did nothing to stop it.
That is why they are responsible.
33
Bernie Madoff ran a scheme in which millions lost by many, resulted in him going to jail.
The difference here is slight.
Besides financial penalties, which should be of the highest order, jail time should be applied across the board, to those involved in the making and the distribution of a drug which, often provided uncontrolled, affected more people in many damning ways, to the benefit of the providers much more than the users.
36
The owners need to go to jail, period. How long will this government allow business moguls to dodge criminal charges? You embarrassed yourself by not jailing a single banker after 2008; this is worse.
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@Alex Pushkin
Agree 100%. Real measure is not the monetary settlement but who goes behind bars. My guess is no one will be jailed.
9
@Alex Pushkin As long as the members of Congress are making big bucks on from this company we won’t see a single one going to jail. They’ll get a slight slap on the wrist, just like the monied individuals in 2008. I’m sure you have seen the sentence of the Hollywood elite for paying for daughters way to elite colleges. There you’ve got it
11
Will anybody go to prison?
Asking for a friend.
25
Of course it filed for chapter 11. The owners and stock holders have to strip the company to get their money. These people cannot/will not lose anything of their lifestyle.
79
What about the many more millions of Chinese that were poisoned by Opium forced upon them at gunpoint in the 1800s by the British and American armed forces? Has anyone given any thoughts to the sufferings of the Chinese during that period?
6
@Mountern
Sounds like whataboutism raised to the nth degree.
The history of imperialism is rich with stories about exploitation at gunpoint. The fact that evil deeds happened in the past doesn't really impact what the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma did, for profit and without regard for the damage, with opioids.
They have the money to buy the best legal counsel. There is great likelihood they will evade justice.
3
@Mountern
That was then and this is now. That's the difference.
1
@Mountern
Your comment is rather irrelevant to the present issue. The victims you refer to were abused by vicious, rampant colonial attitudes.
Contemporary Americans are supposed to be protected by the regulatory agencies of their own government. Those same agencies often seem to fail in their responsibilities to citizens.
No one was even pretending to protect the Chinese from the depredations of white colonists. It was a shameful, extremely abusive period in international relations, not a failure of domestic administration.
5
The Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, are directly responsible for the thousands upon thousands of lives that have been taken because of their production and sales of OxyContin, Butrans, and Hysingla.
This family was well aware of the strong possibility of addiction early on and consciously chose to turn a blind eye. Not only did the Sacklers turn a blind eye, but they also introduced and trained their sales representatives in numerous illegal sales tactics. The following was but one example when a concern of addiction was raised;
Massachusetts' Attorney General's complaint against Purdue Pharma filed 6-13-2018 that cited the Sackler family's invention of illness to address a concern of addiction titled; "pseudoaddiction. A term that was used to describe a patients behavior that may occur when pain is undertreated." (pg 20)
The cure? More OxyContin.
I applaud the '26 states that have refused to settle with Purdue and are intent on pursuing the company's owners, the Sacklers." Because justice is truly not served to allow, the Sacker family to disassociate themselves from their responsibility of the death of thousands of souls for family profit. They are criminal drug dealers.
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@mary Don't forget in an ancillary story that Johnson & Johnson was the leading suppliers of the raw materials to nearly all the other manufactures.
8
@mary -- Rodrigo Dutarte, one of our president's Autocratic buddies, has his own 'special way' of ridding the Philippines of even 'suspected' drug dealers. I'm surprised our president hasn't called him for advice on this.
3
@Michael Thank you for the info. I didn't know this.
1
One of the most important things a successful society has to be able to do is rein in its psychopaths.
Scientists estimate that approximately 1% of the population is psychopathic, and some consider this deviance on a continuum, from malignant narcissists through psychopathy to represent maybe 3% of the population.
Unfortunately, the dominant paradigm in the United States has tended to venerate the most psychopathic among us.
Make no mistake, at least one and maybe two of the people working for the FDA that approved Oxycontin quit their government jobs to work for Purdue.
Secondly, Purdue was the Crown Jewel of downtown Stamford, CT.
Business leaders were quoted in Connecticut magazine as saying in 2016, “that Purdue had always been the ideal corporate citizen.”
Purdue spread the money around Connecticut very generously, to politicians and public causes, all while Senator Blumenthal was the state’s Attorney General.
That money was enough to keep everyone quiet, at least until it became evident there was no way to continue supporting the pharmaceutical company.
Yes, pursue the Sacklers to the end of the earth, but realize that as a society, there’s a whole lot of reckoning that needs to happen here.
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@Annie Gramson Hill Can the Sacklers be extradited from wherever they flee to answer and/or stand trial for their misdeeds? The Madolff were stripped of virtually everything and those that had a hand in the Ponzi scheme were also held liable.
3
@CARL E
Not 'just US,' but Justice!
I Like that.
1
The Pharma maker did provide millions with pain relief and had an ongoing stream of products that made them safer. Until today.
Now the company's net worth will be distributed among tens of thousands of lawyers clamoring for their piece of the free money. Compensation for the "victims" in addition to their attorneys? Grow up -- this is America.
21
Fraudulence conveyance issues? Jail time needs to be part of deal.
28
@Brozv Jail time would be awesome. But chances are their attorneys will make sure they do not serve time. What would be better is ordering them to do hundreds of hours in a drug rehab or better yet to witness first hand what their greed does to someone sick from their drug. Have them "help" when a person is taken to an ER for overdose. That is wicked. These people live above the majority of our citizens to the point they are shielded from the realities of real life.
25
This slimy move is to be expected from a company and family that knowingly and irresponsibly promoted this highly addictive drug because they profited from it.
44
I doubt if they are closing, just using the legal system to stiff the people of a settlement.
37
@Tom. Do you know something the rest of us do not know? Which PEOPLE would be stiffed out of a settlement, as you put it? Which people are getting the settlements awarded with the resolution of current litigation. We have gone from a drug driven crisis- to a crisis of anticipation over reparations? In two years time, there will only be discussions about where did all of the awarded money go, NOT how little was awarded. Pondering that question will have driven a lot of people with their (empty) hands still out, to ‘drink and drugs’.
The Sacklers and their co-conspirators are bankrupt indeed; morally bankrupt.
21
The tragic deaths of those who overdosed will wind up as just a statistic except to their survivors.
However, I can’t help but think that the prescribing doctors aren’t being held accountable and they should be. My statin script ran out and my doctor wouldn’t renew until he saw me which was the right thing to do.
This fiasco will cost jobs and perhaps those who are benefiting with proper care from their physician.
This is the equivalent of suing Jack Daniels when a bartender over serves a patron who on (their way home), kills someone.
There is a touch of mob mentality here with the substantial piling on which, btw, in football, is a 15 yd penalty.
11
@G.Talbot
Maybe we should hold the makers and sellers of alcohol responsible for the damage their product does. When that happened with tobacco, we experienced a dramatic decrease in smoking.
2
@Betsy S
As a surviving son of a father who drank himself to death at 47, leaving debt and no life insurance, I would say not.
At some point personal choice and self control has to factor into one’s decision.
Why bother manufacturing anything if one cannot use in moderation.
I hear Frito-Lay has deep pockets...
2
@G.Talbot
I've known a lot of alcoholics during my life and some were relatives. I do not believe that they voluntarily chose to inflict those tragedies on themselves and those who loved them.
There are some things that don't lend themselves to moderation for many people. Alcohol and other drugs fall into that category. Tobacco products are even more addictive than alcohol in my opinion based on personal experience.
There's something to what you say about Frito-Lay. The big food companies design their products to entice people to over-consume them, but it's not the same as addiction.
I'm sorry for your experience with your father, but I think you shouldn't be so quick to blame him. His alcoholism was an illness that had little to do with personal choice and self-control.
Unless there is individual criminal liability these type of things will just continue happening.
The shareholders, officers, and other execs have bailed or squirreled away their fortunes. It's the employees unknowing shareholders, and vendors that will get burnt.
48
It should not be so easy for a drug cartel to skirt the legal ramifications to sell illicit narcotics under the guise of medication then absolve themselves of any legal repercussion for their racket. Their business model is the very definition in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act that is defined as illegal. They should not be allowed to file for protection under bankruptcy; avoiding any jail time and keep such large proceeds of their illicit gains that if seized could put a sizable dent in the national debt. Their crimes should leave them homeless and destitute as prescribed in the RICO Act.
76
This is nothing more than a greedy attempt by overzealous state AGs to get their hands into the honeypot of a wealthy family. The real victims won’t benefit at all from this as they are six feet under. There’s no justice here.
7
@Leroy
In fairness, how are states supposed to cope and pay for the opioid crisis?
4
No Leroy the victims are not all “six feet under”, the ongoing costs of treatment is overwhelming state, county and municipal government resources. If your point is that individuals and families that have suffered loses need help as well then I agree but if your just another apologist for wealthy American financial predators well the NYT wouldn’t print my response.
5
@Brown
They should sue the FDA (who made this all possible) and all the doctors who wrote the scrips.
2
Oil barons take note. This is your fate too, if you continue to deny climate change.
48
“Corporations are people!” Funny. I never saw a corporation led away in handcuffs.
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@Brown
Well, as long as profits are more important than people, those who can (afford to) purchase 'our' lawmakers will never allow people to become more important than their (ill-gotten?) Profits.
Capitalism, if left unchecked, will destroy this Planet. Purdue Pharma is simply a symptom.
8
When individuals are morally bankrupt, as the owners of Purdue are, they belong in prison.
53
@ACD. Just curious. You refer “to morally bankrupt” people. You do not define your personal definition of moral bankruptcy. There is no universal definition of morality-and if there ever was one- it has been spread so thin as to be unrecognizable.
2
the bankruptcy court should allow it but make the company sell every single asset down to the last pencil sharpener and all of the sales money goes to the states and people affected by the company. also, any board member or executive that knew what the company was doing needs to be charged with something. we need to start holding corporate america accountable for the pain they cause the people.
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@chris - yes.
And the family who owned and directed that corporation, who (literally) made a killing off opiods, should be made to give back all those profits. And then some.
Rodrigo Dutarte, one of our president's Autocratic buddies, has his own 'special way' of ridding the Philippines of 'suspected' drug dealers. I'm surprised our president hasn't called him for advice on this horrific case.
5
@chris
I read very recently (2 days ago?) that the Sacklers had quietly funneled billions of dollars into offshore accounts. And now they are declaring bankruptcy .... surely, so none of those seeking claims against them will get a penny. How can we citizens have an iota of trust in our country's government and justice system when it is so demonstrably corrupt to its core?
3
@scm
Not true. The Sacklers have not filed for bankruptcy. Only Purdue has filed for bankruptcy. And your other statement -- "surely, so none of those seeking claims against them will get a penny" -- is flat-out wrong. That is not how bankruptcy works.
2