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Tag: sackler family purdue pharma

  • Purdue Pharma Would Pay Billions In Proposed Opioid Settlement

    Purdue Pharma Would Pay Billions In Proposed Opioid Settlement

    The newly proposed deal would involve the Sackler family giving up control of Purdue, and paying at least $3 billion toward the settlement.

    Purdue Pharma may be close to reaching a settlement. The OxyContin maker—named in more than 2,000 lawsuits for fueling, and then aggravating, the opioid crisis—is seeking to resolve the lawsuits through a multibillion dollar settlement, NBC News reported.

    The company’s lawyers were in Cleveland last Tuesday (Aug. 20) to meet with the plaintiffs’ attorneys, including state attorneys general, to discuss the proposal, anonymous sources relayed to NBC.

    The company would settle for $10 billion to $12 billion, and declare bankruptcy. The deal would involve the Sackler family giving up control of Purdue, and paying at least $3 billion toward the settlement. The family has owned Purdue since 1952.

    Purdue Speaks

    “The people and communities affected by the opioid crisis need help now,” the company said in a statement to NBC. “Purdue believes a constructive global resolution is the best path forward, and the company is actively working with the state attorneys general and other plaintiffs to achieve this outcome.”

    The company is blamed for fueling the opioid crisis by “downplaying the risks of addiction to OxyContin while exaggerating its benefits.”

    The death toll of the opioid crisis has exceeded 400,000 between 1999-2017, the CDC says.

    The Sacklers

    The legacy of the wealthy Sackler family—a major donor to the arts—has been tarnished by their affiliation with OxyContin. The Sackler name has been removed from the Louvre, and major institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim have agreed to stop accepting gifts from the family, following anti-Sackler rallies organized by photographer Nan Goldin, who herself is in recovery from prescription opioid abuse.

    This wouldn’t be the first time Purdue had to pay for the “alleged” damage inflicted by OxyContin. In 2007, the company paid a fine of $635 million and top executives pleaded guilty in federal court to criminal charges that they duped regulators, medical providers and patients about the drug’s potential to be abused, as the New York Times reported.

    The company also agreed to pay Oklahoma $270 million in March, avoiding the trial that just concluded this month with only Johnson & Johnson as the remaining defendant. Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay the state $572 million to offset the cost of the opioid crisis.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Artists, Activists Hold Anti-Sackler Protest At The Louvre

    Artists, Activists Hold Anti-Sackler Protest At The Louvre

    Celebrated photographer Nan Goldin led Europe’s first anti-Sackler protest at the Louvre this week.

    P.A.I.N. arrived in Paris over the weekend and gathered at the Louvre on Monday (July 1) to protest the Sackler family’s role in fueling the opioid crisis.

    Led by photographer Nan Goldin, who organized similar rallies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the P.A.I.N. activists (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) were there to protest the Sackler family, members of whom own Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.

    Purdue Pharma is facing more than 1,600 lawsuits from American cities, counties and “nearly every U.S. state” for its alleged aggressive marketing of OxyContin and downplaying the risks of becoming dependent on the opioid painkiller.

    Goldin Organizes

    Goldin herself fell victim to the drug. Originally prescribed for surgery, she described becoming “addicted overnight” in a January 2018 essay published in Artforum. Since sharing her own battle with prescription painkiller abuse, Goldin launched protests against the Sacklers where they have donated millions and where their name is displayed prominently—inside major institutions like the Met and the Louvre.

    By rallying at these institutions, Goldin is urging them to stop accepting money from the Sackler family and to remove their name from their walls. “Twelve rooms in the Louvre (in the Oriental Antiquities wing) are named after the Sacklers, following their donation of 10 million francs in 1997,” reads a statement by P.A.I.N. provided to Artforum.

    “We do not accept that the Louvre bears the name of a family complicit in crime. We demand that the Louvre rename the Sackler wing and commit to refusing any criminal donations in the future.”

    Sackler Trusts Halts New Donations

    Since Goldin’s protests, the Sackler Trust has paused all new charitable giving. And the Met, the Guggenheim, the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate have agreed to stop accepting money from the family as well.

    Ultimately, Goldin wants the Sacklers’ fortune to be “clawed back” by the courts, and to be re-distributed toward treatment and outreach programs, as Artforum reported.

    In June, California, Maine and Hawaii joined the long list of plaintiffs suing Purdue Pharma. “The opioid crisis is devastating our communities and killing our loved ones,” said California’s attorney general Xavier Becerra. “Purdue Pharma and Dr. [Richard] Sackler started the fire and then poured gasoline on the opioid crisis with practices that were irresponsible, unconscionable and unlawful.”

    View the original article at thefix.com