#sackler family

[destielmemenews]

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[mysharona1987]

[bodie-r-hart]

Roderick Usher's Legacy

The Fall of the House of Usher

Der Untergang des Hauses Usher

"You know, I've worked with a lot of truly influential people over the years... but when it comes to sheer body counts, you're in my top five. Take a look. Those are your bodies. They'd each be alive today if it weren't for you. News one every five minutes. Just in the States, but... open it up to the world. Why did you come here tonight? On your way home. Your real home. Was it to say goodbye? One last look at your great tower. Your pyramid. That's your true monument, Roderick. Out there. It's a wonder of the world. And it's eternal. That's your legacy."

from the Netflix Series Episode 'The Raven'

[follow-up-news]

The Supreme Court on Thursday blew up the massive bankruptcy reorganization of opioid maker Purdue Pharma, finding that the settlement inappropriately included legal protections for the Sackler family, meaning that billions of dollars secured for victims is now threatened. The court on a 5-4 vote on nonideological lines ruled that the bankruptcy court did not have the authority to release the Sackler family members from legal claims made by opioid victims. As part of the deal, the family, which controlled the company, had agreed to pay $6 billion that could be used to settle opioid-related claims, but only in return for a complete release from any liability in future cases. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said the Sacklers could have declared bankruptcy but instead sought to piggyback on the company's own bankruptcy proceedings in an effort to resolve pending legal claims. "They obtained all this without securing the consent of those affected or placing anything approaching their total assets on the table for their creditors," Gorsuch wrote. "Nothing in present law authorizes the Sackler discharge," he added.

[antigirlb0ss]

Okay I know it's not the point but I do find it hilarious how they described Harvard. "Embodies the best of human values" I could describe Harvard one million ways at least and never utter this phrase

[ausetkmt]

Dopesick : Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company That Addicted America

Dopesick : Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company That Addicted America

Beth Macy reveals the disturbing truth behind America's opioid crisis and explains how a nation has become enslaved to prescription drugs. 

"Dopesick goes to the heart of one of the most urgent problems of our time."  - The Tablet

This powerful and moving story explains how a large corporation, Purdue, encouraged small-town doctors to prescribe OxyContin to a country already awash in painkillers. The drug's dangerously addictive nature was hidden, whilst many used it as an escape, to numb the pain of joblessness and the need to pay the bills. Macy tries to answer a grieving mother's question – why her only son died – and comes away with a harrowing tale of greed and need.

"...a masterwork of narrative journalism, interlacing stories of communities in crisis with dark histories of corporate greed and regulatory indifference ... The further Macy wades into the wreckage of addiction, the more damning her indictment becomes ... Macy introduces so many remarkable people that, midway through Dopesick, readers may find it challenging to keep track of them. (Imagine the writer as the literary equivalent of a triage doctor, with more patients to stabilize than she can linger on.) Taken as a whole, however, this gripping book is a feat of reporting, research and synthesis."  -  Jessica Bruder, New York Times Book Review

[pendragonsclotpole]

i just finished watching dopesick, and i am so so heartbroken and aghast. the scene where the doctor asks to see billy again while in rehab and then tries to get pills from him made my mouth drop open. betsy’s family finding out about her death had me bawling. the actions of the sacklers and purdue pharma had me feeling like someone walked on my grace. not sure how much was real/embellished for the adaptation, but if even 1% of the purdue side of things was real, then fuck that company and that family and fuck the shitty regulations that allowed them to market such an addictive drug so easily. also fuck the way its made me wonder how much of the world around us is made up of shitty people willing to turn a blind eye for their own profit.

[birilio]

Painkiller

[clockworkprism]

While I agree with all this I think the recent example of the Sacklers gives us a horrifying glimpse into a world of fully legalized drugs. I don't have any solution to that but like, a bunch of customers who physically can't stop taking your product without experiencing physically painful withdrawal symptoms is a capitalist wet dream. And it's already happening with things like insulin, imagine what they would do if they could straight up sell heroin.

So we should legalize drugs (not decriminalize cause someone needs to be checking what's going into those products) but we also need to make sure we find a way to prevent them from preying on the vulnerable.

fun fact: any policy on drugs that isn’t harm reduction is going to cause addicts to suffer and die

[fieryfalcon]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/09/17/opioid-epidemic-purdue-pharma-family-mundipharma-global/

At home in the United States, Purdue Pharma, the drugmaker accused of fueling the opioid crisis through its aggressive marketing of highly addictive pain pills, is bankrupt and facing thousands of lawsuits.

Abroad, its global counterparts are selling opioids — and still profiting.

Among the beneficiaries: some members of the Sackler family, who own Purdue and also sit atop a group of international companies known as Mundipharma

[follow-up-news]

A federal appeals court cleared the way for the maker of OxyContin to settle thousands of legal claims tied to the opioid epidemic while shielding the wealthy owners of Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family, from future lawsuits.

Under the plan approved Tuesday by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, members of the wealthy Sackler family would give up ownership of Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue, which would become a new company known as Knoa, with its profits being sent to a fund to prevent and treat addiction.

Family members would also contribute $5.5 billion to $6 billion in cash over time, or around half of what the court found to be their collective fortune, much of it held offshore. A chunk of that money — at least $750 million — is to go to individual victims of the opioid crisis and their survivors. Payments are expected to range from about $3,500 to $48,000.

Tuesday’s decision also protects members of the Sackler family from lawsuits over the toll of opioids, even though they did not file for bankruptcy.

The court’s ruling reversed a 2021 ruling that found bankruptcy court judges did not have the authority to approve a settlement that would offer bankruptcy protections for those who have not filed for bankruptcy.

Those protections are at the heart of the proposed deal that would end claims filed by thousands of state, local and Native American tribal governments and other entities. Sackler family members have been clear that without the protections, they won’t hold up their part of the deal.

[walkacrossthehill]

One of the murals from the Folk-like Festival

Sackler? More like sack of crap

Some other pics from outside of the Smithsonian castle. I like the tidbit about the Moors

[ausetkmt]

Pain killer: an empire of deceit and the origin of America's opioid epidemic

Pain killer: an empire of deceit and the origin of America's opioid epidemic

In Pain Killer, Barry Meier breaks new ground in his decades-long investigation into the opioid epidemic.

Between 1999 and 2017, an estimated 250,000 Americans died from overdoses involving prescription painkillers, a plague ignited by Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin. Families, working class and wealthy, have been torn apart, businesses destroyed, and public officials pushed to the brink. Meanwhile, the drugmaker’s owners, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, whose names adorn museums worldwide, made enormous fortunes from the commercial success of OxyContin.   In Pain Killer, Barry Meier tells the story of how Purdue turned OxyContin into a billion-dollar blockbuster. Powerful narcotic painkillers, or opioids, were once used as drugs of last resort for pain sufferers. But Purdue launched an unprecedented marketing campaign claiming that the drug’s long-acting formulation made it safer to use than traditional painkillers for many types of pain. That illusion was quickly shattered as drug abusers learned that crushing an Oxy could release its narcotic payload all at once. Even in its prescribed form, Oxy proved fiercely addictive. As OxyContin’s use and abuse grew, Purdue concealed what it knew from regulators, doctors, and patients.   Here are the people who profited from the crisis and those who paid the price, those who plotted in boardrooms and those who tried to sound alarm bells. A country doctor in rural Virginia, Art Van Zee, took on Purdue and warned officials about OxyContin abuse. An ebullient high school cheerleader, Lindsey Myers, was reduced to stealing from her parents to feed her escalating Oxy habit. A hard-charging DEA official, Laura Nagel, tried to hold Purdue executives to account.   In Pain Killer, Barry Meier breaks new ground in his decades-long investigation into the opioid epidemic.

He takes readers inside Purdue to show how long the company withheld information about the abuse of OxyContin and gives a shocking account of the Justice Department’s failure to alter the trajectory of the opioid epidemic and protect thousands of lives. Equal parts crime thriller, medical detective story, and business exposé, Pain Killer is a hard-hitting look at how a supposed wonder drug became the gateway drug to a national tragedy.

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter who first exposed the roots of the opioid epidemic and the secretive world of the Sackler family behind Purdue Pharma, Pain Killer is the celebrated landmark story of corporate greed and government negligence that inspired the Netflix limited series Painkiller.   “This is the book that started it all. Barry Meier is a heroic reporter and Pain Killer is a muckraking classic.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice