The unredacted complaint filed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts against Purdue Pharma reveals that the family behind the privately held pharmaceutical compny made billions as more and more Americans lost their lives.
A copy of the filing obtained by DailyMail.com shows that from 2008 to 2016, the Sackler family added $4.2 billion to their already massive fortune in profits derived just from the sale of prescription opioids.
At the same time, overdoses skyrocketed as the opioid epidemic swept the country and claimed the lives of more than 235,000 Americans according to the Centers for Disease Control.
This is just one of the many startling facts and statistics revealed in the 275-page suit that is set to tarnish the legacy of a family that once bragged they would 'bury the competition' with the release of the highly addictive Oxycontin.
Death dealrs: The Sackler family paid themselves $4,273,489,182 (above) in profits from opioid sales from 2008 and 2016 while over 235,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses
Mortimer David Alfons Sackler, 47, with his wife, Jaqueline. Their Hamptons home has been featured in Vogue. Jacqueline is shown, right, with Ivanka Trump in 2007
In March, a group of protesters led by photographer Nan Goldin descended on the Sackler Wing at the Met to shame the family
The complaint states that eight members of the Sackler family (Richard, Beverly, David, Ilene, Jonathan, Kathe, Mortimer and Theresa) 'paid their families billions of dollars from opioid sales.'
The exact number is listed as $4,273,489,182, though it is noted that 'the list of payments if likely incomplete and not exhaustive.'
It was not just the family who was profiting either, with board members taking home $600,000 annually for their work with the company according to the complaint.
Members of the family that controls Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma are also defendants in a lawsuit brought by New York's Suffolk County. There is also a massive consolidated federal case playing out in Ohio.
Kathe Sackler, 70, lives in New York City and owns property in Connecticut with her wife
More than 1,000 government entities have sued Purdue, along with other drugmakers and distributors, claiming they are partly culpable for a drug overdose crisis that resulted in a record 72,000 deaths in 2017.
The majority of those deaths were from legal or illicit opioids.
The company documents at the heart of the Massachusetts claims also could be evidence in the Ohio lawsuits, which are being overseen by a federal judge.
The allegations have already started to tarnish a name that is best known for its generosity to museums worldwide including New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a Sackler wing, and London's Tate Modern.
The late Mortimer Sackler with his widow, Dame Theresa Sackler who is among members of the family being sued
Brothers Jonathan, left, and Richard, right. Richard headed Purdue from 1999 to 2003 and oversaw much of the increasing sales of OxyContin as it was being advertised
Beverly Sackler is Raymond's 94-year-old widow. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut
The Sackler name also is on a gallery at the Smithsonian, a wing of galleries at London's Royal Academy of Arts and a museum at Beijing's Peking University.
The family's best known and most generous donor, Arthur M. Sackler, died nearly a decade before OxyContin was released.
In its lawsuit filed last year, the Massachusetts attorney general's office went after members of the Sackler family and Purdue, which is structured as a partnership and is not publicly traded.
The company's flagship drug, OxyContin, was the first of a generation of drugs that used a narcotic painkiller in a time-release form. That meant each pill had a larger amount of drug in it than other versions and could get abusers a more intense high if they defeated the time-release process.
The state is asserting that Richard Sackler, a son of a company founder and at the time a senior vice president for Purdue, as well as other family members pushed selling OxyContin even when they knew it could cause problems.
Ilene is Mortimer's oldest daughter. She is pictured in 1999 opening the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology
When the drug was first sold in 1996, the filing said, Sackler told the sales force 'the launch of OxyContin Tablets will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition.'
In 2007, the company and three current and former executives pleaded guilty to criminal charges that they deceived regulators, doctors and patients about the drug's addiction risks.
The company agreed to fines of $634 million.
The next year, according to the Massachusetts lawsuit, the company pressed ahead with a new version of the drug designed to be harder for abusers to crush.
It did so without first conducting trials and despite a warning from the company's CEO that the new version 'will not stop patients from the simple act of taking too many pills.'
Purdue had previously responded to the Massachusetts filing.
'In a rush to vilify a single manufacturer whose medicines represent less than 2 percent of opioid pain prescriptions rather than doing the hard work of trying to solve a complex public health crisis, the complaint distorts critical facts and cynically conflates prescription opioid medications with illegal heroin and fentanyl,' said the company.
A spokesman for the Sackler family declined to comment.
Link hienalouca.com This is interesting We are looking for an investor for a project to grow dinosaurs from chicken eggs and relict plants. Necessary amount of investments from 400 000 to 900 000 dollars. For all interested parties, e-mail angocman@gmail.com. This will be very interesting.https://hienalouca.com/2019/02/01/sackler-family-made-4-billion-in-painkiller-profits-as-235000-americans-did-from-opioid-overdoses/
Main photo article The unredacted complaint filed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts against Purdue Pharma reveals that the family behind the privately held pharmaceutical compny made billions as more and more Americans lost their lives.
A copy of the filing obtained by DailyMail.com shows that from 2008 to...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/02/01/00/9252326-6655467-image-a-27_1548979253791.jpg
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий