The Sackler Family is reputedly worth $14 billion, but who knows if it is more or less. This money derived from the manufacture and marketing of OxyContin, a highly addictive opioid, by Purdue Pharma.
With lawsuits filed in 2,000 jurisdictions, the Sacklers offered $10-12 billion to selle all the lawsuits. Fighting all of them could bankrupt the company and the family.
The Financial Times is reporting that Purdue Pharma, the opioid maker, and members of the billionaire Sackler family that own the company have offered to settle thousands of lawsuits against the company for $10 to $12 billion, according to people briefed on the offer.
According to FT, more than 2,000 states, cities, and counties across America are pursuing the OxyContin maker over the large bills for cleaning up the opioid crisis — and are deciding whether to accept the offer by Friday, the people said.
Rhode Island is presently in litigation with both the company and its subsidiary Rhode Technology in Coventry, RI.
The Sackler family is one of the richest families in America.
Money fines aren’t sufficient. They need to be incarcerated. I knew a young boy that died because of opioids! They’re criminals!
I hope they are fought in court and lose everything.
The Sacklers are trying to get off on the cheap. Given the verdict against Johnson and Johnson, if you assume that the average verdict amount is only 10% of that over all 2000 jurisdictions, then they’re looking at having to pay out well over $100 billion. They want to try and settle now for pennies on the dollar and keep a significant chunk of their ill-gotten gains. True justice would be to strip them of every cent they have.
The name “Sackler” says it all.
They need to go bankrupt and put in prison.
NOPE! NO SETTLEMENT!!!
I say go to freaking court and plunder the vile Sackler family blind. They are drug kingpins and should be left impoverished for their crimes against humanity. They can finish out their lives in jail, where they will enrich one of their jail-owning plutocrat peers.
Let the über rich devour the über rich.
I’ll make the popcorn . . . .
Plain or buttered?
God. I hear Jim Carrey from “Liar, Liar” screaming: “SETTLE!!! SETTLE, SETTLE, SETTLE!!!:
This leaves me a little cold.
Sure, prosecute the Sacklers to the nth for clear, proven fraud, and any other companies involved in this villainous trade. They claimed their new version of a poison, used only to ease the suffering of the dying, could safely be used for a much wider market.
But… America loves to bring a big bad guy down – focus blame for a huge problem on a few bad actors while winking at the system that made it possible – which means there’s nothing to stop more of the same happening down the road.
I mean, come on: oxycodone has been around since 1916. Throw in some tylenol & you’re good to go? And then there’s extended release: a little better than morphine, side-effects-wise, but still we’re talking a med for cancer pain. How on earth did this “morph” into a med legally prescribed for “moderate pain,” “chronic pain,” or for more than a few days post-op? Where was the FDA? Where was the AMA? Where were the doctors , who surely knew enough from their training to be skeptical?
I speak as one w/personal experience. Our late eldest had severe chronic pain stemming from a rare autoimmune disease, which took a turn for the worse at age 20. The pain was visceral, & equivalent to cancer pain. That period coincided with the height of recklessness in opioid prescriptions. I was shocked at how even a highly-reputable rheumatologist had him on oxycontin [which was ineffective], then fentanyl patch [which immediately repressed his respiration] before connecting him w/pain-mgt specialist. During his treatment, we became aware of what was going on around us. He had a friend w/spine disease & several fusions, whose dr never brought in a pain specialist: the kid would sometimes get too many meds & sometimes none, depending on DEA pressure. And our son was occasionally ‘befriended’ by peers who turned out to be pain-pill addicts who heard he had a supply.
The pain-mgt specialist was cautious, tried various routes, did he best he could per the available research; my son was never addicted.
BUT: to tie this back into my theme of “the big picture”… No question in my mind my son’s in-hospital death of sudden fatal cardiac arrhythmia was a consequence of the pain dr’s [sensible] attempt to transition him from [by then, 3 yrs later] high opioid dose, to methadone. Later, I pointed the doc to a paper written by a med researcher on the potential dangers, particularly during the transition from IV methadone to pill form (when my son died). That paper was based on a tiny-cohort study that got no traction at all. Why? Larger studies could not [still cannot] be done, because deaths connected to that process are considered “methadone deaths” & get thrown in w/general stats on drug OD… My son’s death [no symptoms of OD] was called “unknown causes” because the ME checked w/doc on hi methadone level & understood the dosage was necessary to step down the opiate level.
So part of the “big picture” is obviously unregulated, too-big-to-fail Big Pharma, & its ability to override FDA, AMA, & common sense– and directly interferes with robust empirical research. A clear consequence of laissez-faire capitalism. The other part is dicier: the uneasy relationship between DEA enforcement of illegal drug trade & the world of medical research/ treatment, which reflects a certain cultural ambivalence that also interferes with empirical research.
BTW, tho you may have already inferred, I had no feelings of anger, desire to sue etc against the medical establishment because, what was the alternative to trying to alleviate his pain w/whatever were the known methods? For the autoimmune disease, he was on the latest biologic injectible available; the rheumatologist counted on the pain specialist to buy time while an improvement was in the pipeline.
Dangerous high-opiate pain meds are for those who’d live writhing in pain otherwise. Such folk rarely become addicted. This was long known in Europe before US got a clue and overcame its drug-addiction-phobia enough to provide a morphine-pump for terminal patients. I had relatives in the ’60’s who died screaming. [May those who delayed palliative care rot in hell].
There is a place for opiates among those in chronic debilitating pain. Many have been helped by the loosening of scrip protocols to return to a more active, independent life. [Those poor folks get the rug pulled out from under them in times like these: “No meds for you!” – DEA med nazi.]. The key is to have the meds prescribed by specialists who know what the hell they’re doing. It’s not OK to have Dr Tom Dick & Harry handing out free samples from the Sacklers… It’s just another example of why we need govt-provided, govt-regulated healthcare. If govt has to provide for/ treat the opioid-addicted — and pay for assistance to the chronic-pain-debilitated folks who’d be more independent w/judicious pain mgt — they’d find a sensible balance.
Your post, Bethree, is the wisest thing I’ve read on this subject. Thank you.
It’s a sick system. So very, very sorry for your loss.
Thanks, Bob
For anyone still reading here, I watched CSPAN Wash Jnl coverage of the issue today, which led me to 2017 60mins series I’d missed. It studied how the opioid crisis started. They pin the trigger that opened the floodgates on the FDA, which after a series of secret meetings w/Big Pharma reps in 2001, changed the opioid label—based on no science whatsoever– to allow prescription for chronic pain, for long periods [no time limits].
Next in line to blame [#2]: three obscure generic drug mfrs—most prominently Mallinckrodt—who manufactured the vast majority of the 76 million opiate pills prescribed in US between 2006-2012. Mfrs by law were supposed to be tracking the orders & reporting suspicious activity to FDA [did not do].
AND #3 on the hit parade, folks: THE STATE OF FLORIDA! Yup. Due to its utter lack of regulation, FL shortly became the center of opioid distribution for the entire country, spawning hundreds of pill-mills [faux “pain mgt clinics”] to which consumers flocked during the early years of this market. A particularly egregious offender (a pill-mill doc) is now behind bars for life. A cellphone video of his waiting room during its heyday showed a hundred people packed in, lining up for 2-min combo scrip/ pill refills from behind a barred window. Routinely prescribing 25-100 pills/day to individuals. (He says he’s a scapegoat– hundreds of drs were doing it.) An interviewee said on that block alone of his FL city there were 31 such establishments.
FL is a rogue state.
Interesting expression, isn’t it? What someone is “worth.”
For what it’s worth
The value of a human being
Is four bucks and some change
“For chemicals” is what I mean
Although it might seem strange
Math–if they spend $12 billion & they have $14 billion, they’ll still have $2 billion left.
Hardly “broke.” (Wouldn’t our families love to have $2 billion?)
They deserve no less than serious jail time.
I heard today on a news report that the Sackler Family would pay only $1-3 billion. The remainder would come from the corporation. The family would still control more than $10 billion.
Yep–jail time it should (but won’t) be. & yet, all those people rot in Rikers for years w/o due process. Not to mention those refugees stuck in detention centers.
& last, but not least, the 1,000s who have died from opioid overdose.