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Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin, the highly addictive opioid, pleaded guilty last week in connection to the marketing of the painkiller that experts say contributed to the country’s drug opioid epidemic.
The New York Times reported the guilty plea, and the approximately $8.3 billion settlement does not eliminate all litigation against the company, but the plea is considered a win in the effort to hold the drug maker accountable, the report said.
The settlement was the largest ever for a pharmaceutical company in the U.S., but it is unclear the amount the company would be able to pay. Reports indicated Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019, and assets were below the settlement amount.
According to the CDC, some 450,000 people died from overdoses involving any opioid, including prescription and illicit opioids, from 1999 to 2018.
William Tong, Connecticut’s attorney general, criticized the settlement on PBS’ “The News Hour” and called it a “mirage of justice.”
He said the settlement does not require executives and owners to leave the business, and there is a chance the company can reemerge under a different identity. He said there is also no assurance the Sackler family – the wealthy owners of the company – will stay out of the drug business.
“We have to shut down Purdue and get these people out of business,” Tong said.
The Times reported the family agreed to pay $225 million in civil penalties and insisted they “acted ethically and lawfully.” The family described a situation where they were left in the dark about what was occurring during the offense and blamed “management” for essentially misleading them. (The family’s net worth is about $13 billion, and some critics of the settlement said the amount was too low.)
The company’s chairman, Steve Miller, issued a statement after the settlement announcement that the drugmaker “accepts responsibility for the misconduct detailed by the Department of Justice in the agreed statement of facts.”
Daniel S. Connolly, a lawyer for members of the Sackler family, told NBC New York he regretted the rush to judgment against the family and criticized New York University’s decision to remove the name from its “Sackler Institute.”
“As soon as Purdue documents are released, they will show the company’s history and that members of the Sackler family who served on the board of directors always acted ethically and lawfully, so it is disappointing that NYU is rushing to judgment,” Connolly said.
The Times reported that Perdue Pharma has been blamed for misleading elements about its drug, which contributed to the opioid crisis in the country. The CDC reported in 2018 alone, there were 67,367 overdose deaths.
The company hopes to resolve all of the thousands of suits against it and reportedly offered a “global settlement” of $10 billion and an additional $3 billion from the family.
Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, told the NYT, “The D.O.J. failed. Justice, in this case, requires exposing the truth and holding the perpetrators accountable, not rushing a settlement to beat an election. I am not done with Purdue and the Sacklers, and I will never sell out the families who have been calling for justice for so long.”
TRENDPOST: In America, as with much of the world, from Bankster Bandits to the Pharma Drug Gangs, big-time criminals get a slap on the wrist for high crimes and misdemeanors, while it’s prosecution to the fullest for “We the Peasants” of Slavelandia.
Indeed, while the big pharma drug dealers make billions and kill millions, in 1994, the New England Journal of Medicine reported the “War on Drugs” resulted in sending one million Americans off to jail each year.
The Washington Post reported in 2008 that of 1.5 million Americans arrested each year for drug offenses, half a million would be locked up and one in five black Americans would go to jail on drug law charges.
No, the Oxycontin penalty is not “a mirage of justice” as Connecticut’s attorney general states.
“Justice” is the mirage… considering the criminal politicians who start wars based on lies; the chemicals/pesticides pumped into our food, water, earth and air; poisons by businesses and industries… who do no time for their crimes that cost trillions and kill millions.