The New York Times reports that documents in a court filing by the attorney general of Massachusetts against Purdue Pharma indicate that “members of the Sackler family, which owns the company that makes OxyContin, directed years of efforts to mislead doctors and patients about the dangers of the powerful opioid painkiller.” The filing contends that then-company president Richard Sackler “urged that sales representatives advise doctors to prescribe the highest dosage of the powerful opioid painkiller because it was the most profitable.” Additionally, the court filing “asserts that Sackler family members were aware that Purdue Pharma repeatedly failed to alert authorities to scores of reports the company had received that OxyContin was being abused and sold on the street.” This is “the first evidence that appears to tie the Sacklers to specific decisions made by the company about the marketing of OxyContin.”
Lawsuit: Pharma exec promised to unleash “blizzard” of OxyContin prescriptions.
In continuing coverage of court filings in a lawsuit by the Massachusetts Attorney General against the Sackler family, owner of the company that manufactures OxyContin, NBC Nightly News reported, “Prosecutors say the messages show they helped fuel the opioid crisis by deceiving doctors and patients, and try to blame users who got addicted.” NBC Political analyst Claire McCaskill said, “We now know that Purdue and the Sackler family were pushing for the strongest possible dosage to be prescribed because they made more money. The stronger the dosage, the more money they made. But the stronger the dosage, the more people died.”
The AP reports that Sackler “told people at the prescription opioid painkiller’s launch party in the 1990s that it would be ‘followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition.’” The AP says “the details were made public in a case brought by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey that accuses Purdue Pharma, its executives and members of the Sackler family of deceiving patients and doctors about the risks of opioids and pushing prescribers to keep patients on the drug longer.” Healey “says the Sackler family…was long aware its drug was dangerous and addictive but pushed more sales anyway.”
From the news release of the American Association for Justice.
