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Geoff Mulvihill, The Associated Press
Posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2018 at 9:29 pm EDT
The family that owns a pharmaceutical company is now being sued on behalf of opioid painkillers in a New York County – and hundreds of others will likely sue him.
More than 1,000 lawsuits filed by state and local governments are charging drug companies with a dependency and overdose crisis across the country. Only a few of them have named Sackler family members, who owns and controls Purdue Pharma.
But a new document filed by Suffolk County in New York states that family members were involved in billing OxyContin as non-addictive, even though they knew it was not. The statement exposes more detailed allegations regarding the involvement of family, funder of museums around the world, including the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Tate Modern in London.
The lawsuit indicates that the family learned in 1999 that OxyContin was being abused, but a Purdue official later told a congressional investigation that they were not aware of the abuses. 2000.
A spokesman said the family refused to comment.
Paul Hanly, a lawyer representing Suffolk County, said the more than 200 other local governments he represents in similar trials will also sue the Sacklers and other lawyers will follow suit.
"This raises the stakes dramatically," said Hanly. He added that family members withdrew "tens of billions" of profits from the company – and that they could be forced to surrender it in order to pay damages and penalties in court cases. .
The Suffolk County lawsuit is part of a group of ongoing lawsuits in state courts in New York.
A Cleveland judge oversees more than 1,000 similar lawsuits and urges governments and companies that manufacture, distribute and sell opioids to reach an ambitious settlement in these cases, including payments and changes in business practices. sector.
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