DECEMBER 2022:
Evil Has A Name, And It’s Sackler…
The Sackler family is an American family who founded and owned the pharmaceutical companies Purdue Pharma and Mundipharma. Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler, the three children of Jewish immigrants from Galicia and Poland, grew up in Brooklyn in the 1930s. All three of the siblings went to medical school and worked together at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens. They were often cited as early pioneers in medical techniques that ended the common practice of lobotomies. They were also regarded as the first to fight for the racial integration of blood banks. Arthur Sackler was widely regarded as the patriarch of the family. In 1952, the brothers bought a small pharmaceutical company, Purdue-Fredrick. Raymond and Mortimer ran Purdue Pharma, while Arthur, the oldest brother, became a pioneer in medical advertising. He devised campaigns appealing directly to doctors and enlisted prominent physicians to endorse Purdue Pharma’s products. Arthur is considered one of the foremost art collectors of his generation, he also donated the majority of his collections to museums all over the world. After his death in 1987, his option on one-third of Purdue-Fredrick was sold by his estate to his two brothers who turned it into Purdue Pharma. In 1996, Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin, a reformulated version of oxycodone in a slow-release form. Oxycodone was first invented in 1916 and sold as Eukodal but had been withdrawn from the market in 1990 due to addiction issues. Raymond and Mortimer Sackler played significant roles in the company’s operations and marketing strategies.
Richard Sackler, played by Michael Stuhlbarg in Dopesick, is the son of Raymond and is a Sackler billionaire and physician who was chairman and president of Purdue Pharma and was connected to the development of OxyContin and the opioid epidemic in the United States and has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and fines as a result. Richard was born in Roslyn, New York in 1945 and he received a bachelor’s degree from Colombia University, and followed that by joining his father and uncles by becoming a doctor and attending medical school for his MD degree from the New York University School of Medicine. Sackler joined Purdue Pharma in 1971, as an assistant to his father. His father was the company’s president. Richard became head of research and development and head of marketing, where he was a key figure in the development of OxyContin being the moving force behind Purdue Pharma’s research around 1990 that pushed OxyContin to replace MS Contin that was about to have a generic competition.
Richard also was integral in getting Russell Portenoy and J. David Haddox into working within the medical community to push a new narrative claiming that opioids were not highly addictive. In pushing this narrative of OxyContin through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1995, Sackler managed to get the FDA to approve a claim that OxyContin was less addictive than other painkillers, although there had been no studies at the time on how addictive it was or how likely it was to be abused, and no studies of the sort were conducted as part of the approval process. This is quite alarming since the addictive nature of opiates has been known for several decades. Richard became president of Purdue Pharma in 1999, and in 2001 he sent out an email to employees of the company urging them to push the narrative that addiction to OxyContin was caused by the “criminal” addicts who had the addiction and was not caused by the drug itself. Sackler also urged pharmaceutical representatives to urge doctors to prescribe as high a dose as possible to increase the company’s profits.
Richard Sackler was made co-chairman of Purdue Pharma in 2003. Sackler was in charge of the research department that developed OxyContin, and as president, he approved the targeted marketing schemes to promote sales of OxyContin to doctors, pharmacists, nurses, academics, and others. In 2008, Sackler, along with Mortimer and Jonathan Sackler’s support, made Purdue Pharma measure its performance in proportion to not only the number of pills being sold but also the strength of the doses it sold, despite allegedly knowing that sustained high doses of the drug risked serious side effects, including addiction.
In 2015, Sackler was deposed in Louisville, Kentucky by four lawyers investigating the concern over the development and marketing of OxyContin, and how this affected him and his family financially. All of the Sackler family were and are active board members of their private company, Purdue Pharma. The marketing and prescribing of OxyContin in Pike County, Kentucky, was of particular interest to the four lawyers. Before the case went to trial and before the deposition was made a matter of public record, Purdue Pharma settled for $24 million, but admitted no liability and had the deposition sealed from the public, and required Kentucky prosecutors to destroy or return to Purdue Pharma the millions of pages of internal documents obtained from the company during the discovery process. A medical news website called STAT News sued under the 1967 Freedom of Information Act to unseal Richard Sackler’s deposition. A state judge ruled in its favor and Purdue Pharma appealed but the deposition was later made public.
In 2018, the State of Massachusetts sued Richard Sackler, Purdue Pharma, and 15 other Purdue Pharma executives and Sackler family members alleging that they had misled doctors and patients about the risks involved with taking its opioid-based pain medications for the sole purpose of boosting sales and to keep patients from safer alternatives. In response to the Massachusetts court filing. Richard sent an email that said:
Purdue Pharma has faced numerous allegations of misconduct regarding OxyContin since the Massachusetts court filing. Not only did the drug’s development and testing process come under scrutiny, with accusations that Purdue downplayed the addictive nature of OxyContin and misrepresented its potential for abuse. The company allegedly conducted misleading marketing campaigns, exaggerating the drug’s effectiveness and minimizing the risks associated with its use in January 2019, The New York Times confirmed that Richard Sackler had told company officials back in 2008 to “measure our performance by Rx’s by strength giving higher measures to higher strengths.” This quote was verified again in legally obtained documents tied to another lawsuit, which was filed in June 2019 by the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, and the lawsuit also revealed that Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family knew that putting patients on high dosages of OxyContin for long periods of time increased the risk for serious side effects that included most of all, the likelihood of addiction.
Nonetheless, Purdue Pharma promoted the high dosage because stronger pain pills brought the company and the Sacklers the most profit, as charged in the lawsuit. AG Healey also released unredacted documents on February 1, 2019, that showed the Sacklers were directing doctors to overprescribe the drug and even encouraged a medicating strategy under the code name “Region Zero”, that detailed the list of doctors who prescribed inordinately large amounts of OxyContin for no true medical reason, but rather for the directly related profit of the Sackler family.
Further lawsuits would allege conflicts of interest that extended to regulatory bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). Critics claimed that Purdue Pharma had close ties to these agencies, potentially influencing their decisions and actions regarding OxyContin. It was suggested that the company’s influence might have led to the FDA approving OxyContin despite concerns about its addictive properties. Their hiring practices also supported this, Purdue Pharma would often hire ex-employees of the FDA who then retire from their federal job on the promise of giving them a heavy salary and bonuses to come to work for them, but that would only occur if they did Purdue Pharma a solid while still employed by the FDA.
The first legal case against Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family gained significant attention. It resulted in multiple lawsuits filed by states, cities, and individuals, accusing the company of fueling the opioid crisis through aggressive marketing and contributing to the addiction epidemic. In 2020, Purdue Pharma reached a settlement agreement with the DOJ, admitting responsibility for unlawful conduct and agreeing to pay billions of dollars in fines. At least one legal case also involved allegations of the Sackler’s transferring funds from Purdue Pharma to offshore accounts, potentially to shield their wealth from litigation. This led to further legal actions and discussions regarding the family’s responsibility and accountability in the opioid crisis. Overall, the Sackler family‘s association with Purdue Pharma, the alleged conflicts of interest with regulatory bodies, and the legal case against the company shed light on the devastating impact of OxyContin and the broader opioid crisis in the United States.
The Sackler family once seen as innovators and pioneers in the medical field of practice are now considered to be the “most evil family in America” as well as “the worst drug dealers in history” making Pablo Escobar look like a chump in the drug dealing game. The Sackler family has since been profiled in various media, including the documentary The Crime of the Century on HBO, the book Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, the 2022 Oscar-nominated documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy, and the 2021 Hulu limited series adapted from Macy’s book, Dopesick starring Michael Keaton and Kaitlyn Dever.
Oxford University removed the Sackler name from its buildings following a review of its relationship and admitted regret from its role in the US opioid epidemic, the Sackler Gallery and its sister institution, the Freer Gallery of Art were also rebranded although the Smithsonian Institution was keen to point out that neither gallery will have an official name change and simply be called the National Museum of Asian Art. While some institutions and galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, still carry the Sackler name, protests by Americans and families of those affected by the opioid epidemic eventually result in the removal of the Sackler name after they deem these institutions and galleries supporting rather than rejecting the Sacklers for the roles they played in addicting America to Opioids. The court of public opinion will never be out on erasing the Sackler name from prestige, while demanding responsibility, and accountability regardless of the recent legal court ruling removing the Sacklers from personal liability in relation to the Opioid epidemic and legal cases against them and their company Purdue Pharma.
You can watch the full limited series Dopesick on Hulu with a paid subscription to the streaming service.
