From one 'big house' to another: DOJ must hold the leaders of Purdue Pharma accountable
In his fifth year in the U.S. Navy, Derek was prescribed OxyContin for an injured knee and fell into the depths of opioid addiction. After leaving the Navy, Derek had big plans to marry his girlfriend and move to St. Louis. But those dreams were shattered when he was found dead from an overdose of a variety of drugs just weeks before his 30th birthday.
Four years after Derek's death, David Sackler bought a 10,000-square-foot $22.5 million Bel Air estate entirely in cash. That cash came from Purdue Pharma, the company that makes the powerful opioid prescription painkiller OxyContin that tore apart the lives of Derek and so many others. Sackler is a board member of Purdue Pharma, and is the grandson of its founder.
As revealed through thousands of lawsuits and investigations dealing with Purdue's role in the opioid epidemic, David Sackler and other members of the Sackler family knowingly and deliberately hooked countless Americans on addictive painkillers while lining their pockets with billions of dollars. Thanks in part to Purdue Pharma, the United States consumes over 80 percent of the world's opioids, while being only 4.4 percent of the world's population.
With very little evidence that their opioid drug - OxyContin - could treat chronic pain in addition to the traditional acute pain, Purdue Pharma encouraged doctors to approach this broader market. Purdue Pharma funded more than 20,000 "educational" programs designed to miseducate doctors and health organizations that pain needed to be treated more aggressively. Under the Sacklers' leadership, Purdue not only encouraged doctors to push the sale of OxyContin on those who did not need the drug, Purdue monetarily rewarded those who did.
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