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Tag: The Sacklers

  • Opioid Lawsuits Pile Up Against Family Behind Purdue Pharma

    Opioid Lawsuits Pile Up Against Family Behind Purdue Pharma

    A string of lawsuits seeks to hold the Sackler family, who own Purdue Pharma, responsible for the opioid crisis.

    The Sackler family is withdrawing from the public sphere, including ending their philanthropic initiatives, as legal pressure rises to hold them responsible for the opioid crisis.

    Their charity arm, the Sackler Trust, has historically donated millions but announced it was ceasing all such activity now that they’re receiving bad press and alleging that “false allegations” are being made against them.

    “The current press attention that these legal cases in the United States is generating has created immense pressure on the scientific, medical, educational and arts institutions here in the U.K., large and small, that I am so proud to support. This attention is distracting them from the important work that they do,” said Sackler Trust chairwoman Theresa Sackler. “The Trustees of the Sackler Trust have taken the difficult decision to temporarily pause all new philanthropic giving, while still honoring existing commitments. I remain fully committed to all the causes the Sackler Trust supports, but at this moment it is the better course for the Trust to halt all new giving until we can be confident that it will not be a distraction for institutions that are applying for grants.”

    Purdue Pharma is the manufacturer of the opioid painkiller OxyContin, a drug for which they stand accused of downplaying the negative effects of while encouraging doctors to prescribe as much as possible in the name of profit.

    According to the Centers for Disease Control, opioids caused about 218,000 American deaths between 1999 and 2017. A recent study found that people are now more likely die from an opioid overdose than in a car accident. The Sacklers say they recognize that action needs to be taken.

    “We recognize that more needs to be done and that’s why we launched a long-term initiative that continues to build as we pursue a range of solutions that we believe will have a meaningful impact,” wrote Theresa Sackler.

    The Sacklers have suspended a $1.3 million grant to the United Kingdom’ National Portrait Gallery as to “avoid being a distraction.” Some other organizations, like the art gallery Tate, the Guggenheim, and the hedge fund Hildene Capital Management, have cut ties to the Sacklers preemptively.

    “The weight on my conscience led me to terminate the relationship,” said hedge fund manager Brett Jefferson.

    Some have called for removing the Sacklers’ name from buildings they funded, including Harvard University’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum and the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, which were funded by the Sacklers long before the invention of OxyContin. Spokespeople for both museums have said they are not going to remove the Sackler name from their buildings.

    “Museums (are) white washing the reputation of a family that is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people … But the tide is turning against them,” said L.A. Kauffman of accountability group Sackler PAIN.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Opioid Crisis Activists "Die In" At Guggenheim Over Sackler Family Ties

    Opioid Crisis Activists "Die In" At Guggenheim Over Sackler Family Ties

    After the Guggenheim, protesters walked two blocks to the Metropolitan Museum, which has a wing named after the Sackler family. 

    Protesters dropped fake prescriptions from balconies, handed out empty pill bottles and laid down as if they were dead at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City to call attention to the opioid epidemic and call for the museum and others like it to stop acknowledging the billionaire philanthropists of the Sackler family, members of which founded the company that would become Purdue Pharma, the manufacturers of OxyContin. 

    “I want the Guggenheim and others publicly to disavow themselves from the Sacklers and refuse future funding from them, and I want them to take down the Sackler name from the museums,” Nan Goldin, who organized the protest, told The Guardian.

    Goldin, a photographer who art displayed in the Guggenheim, has been an outspoken critic of the Sackler family after she nearly died of an opioid overdose, following an addiction that she says started when she was prescribed OxyContin, a pill produced by Purdue Pharma. 

    The Sackler family has its name on the Guggenheim and other museums and institutes for the arts. Since the opioid epidemic — and Purdue’s misleading advertising claims — have been in the spotlight more, some have called on these institutions to distance themselves from the family.

    “We’re here to call out the Sackler family. By failing to disavow them now, by refusing to take down their names, the museums are complicit in the opioids crisis.”

    Distributing fake prescriptions from the balconies was meant to call attention to comments made by one member of the Sackler family, claiming that the launch of OxyContin would “followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition,” said Goldin. 

    According to The New Yorker, the fake scripts were for 80 milligrams of OxyContin to be taken 24 times a day. They also contained a quote: “If OxyContin is uncontrolled, it is highly likely that it will eventually be abused. . . . How substantially would it improve our sales?” The words were pulled from court filling in Massachusetts, where Purdue is being sued for its prescribing practices. 

    After the Guggenheim, protesters walked two blocks to the Metropolitan Museum, which has a wing named after the Sackler family. 

    Visitors to the Guggenheim were initially confused, but a few who spoke to The Guardian said that the protest resonated with them. 

    “It reminded me of stories of protesters laying down in Wall Street during the Aids epidemic. These institutions all have dirty hands,” said Alex Viteri.

    Another man was visiting from New Hampshire, one of the states hardest hit by the opioid epidemic. The man said that his brother-in-law became hooked on opioids after being prescribed OxyContin. Like many people, the brother-in-law progressed to illicit opioids and died of a drug overdose. 

    View the original article at thefix.com