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New York Attorney General Letitia James said Friday that the family behind the company would have tried to conceal at least $ 1 billion of assets.
The allegation could result in the re-examination of a draft regulation between the drug manufacturer Purdue Pharma and the plaintiffs, who have taken more than 2,000 lawsuits against him. And some legal experts believe that this could ultimately lead members of the Sackler family, owner of Purdue, to criminal prosecution.
James' office has prosecuted Purdue and the Sacklers on an individual basis. As part of this lawsuit, he has summoned 33 summonses to financial institutions to better understand the wealth and influence of the family. The return of one of these subpoenas led to the discovery of $ 1 billion electronic transfers, which had not been disclosed before.
The settlement was based on the assumption that the Sacklers collectively possessed a wealth of about $ 13 billion, but James argues that the transfer could mean that the family has much more wealth than previously thought, which would likely give those seeking a site permit more than $ 3. billion which has been provisionally accepted.
"While the Sacklers continue to discredit the victims and circumvent a responsible settlement, we refuse to allow the family to misuse the courts in order to protect their financial misconduct," James said in a statement.
Purdue is sued by more than 50 states and territories and 2,300 cities and counties. These jurisdictions argue that the Sacklers and their company must help pay for an opioid addiction crisis that they have benefited from and that they have helped create, and that the treatment and recovery programs needed will cost billions of dollars . While many local leaders initially agreed with the agreement in principle, James' allegations could lead them to reconsider their decision and come back to the negotiating table in the hope of finding a better deal. get more money from Sackler for these programs.
The Sacklers and the opioid crisis, briefly explained
In the 1990s, Purdue Pharma unveiled OxyContin, a non-addictive pain reliever. The company encouraged doctors to prescribe their medication "with the promise that abuse, addiction and overdose would be rare", as explained by German Lopez de Vox, as it contained more opioids than other similar drugs, but that he was also extended-release. formula. In fact, this formula made it more prone to abuse because people quickly realized that crushing, snorting and injecting the pills would allow them to bypass the slow release mechanism.
This discovery – and the misuse of competing opioid-based drugs – has triggered what is now a total epidemic of opioids, writes Lopez:
The epidemic of opioids can be understood in three waves. In the first wave, beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, doctors prescribed many opioid analgesics. This has led to a widespread proliferation of drugs and their addictions – not only patients, but also friends and families of patients, teenagers who were taking drugs in their parents' medicine cabinets and those who were buying drugs in their homes. excess on the black market.
A second wave of drug overdoses took off in the 2000s, when heroin invaded the illicit market. Traffickers and drug traffickers have benefited from a new population of people who have used opioids but have lost access to painkillers or are simply seeking a higher, cheaper drug. And in recent years, the United States has experienced a third wave, with fentanyls offering an alternative to heroin that is even more powerful, less expensive and more deadly.
Even when addiction to this pill began to increase, the Sackler family continued to argue that their pills were safe and that abuse was rare.
David Sackler, who served on Purdue's Board of Directors for six years, has repeatedly stated that OxyContin represents such a small portion of the opioid market (about 4% of all opioid prescriptions) that could not blame anyone. But among opioids involved in cases of abuse and addiction, OxyContin accounts for a much larger share than 4%. And as Lopez de Vox explains, Purdue is considered particularly responsible for the current outbreak because of its help in launching a culture of overescription of supposedly safe analgesics:
Purdue has also played an important role beyond OxyContin. By marketing its new opioid as safe and effective, Purdue helped create an environment in which opioids in general – and not just OxyContin – were prescribed much more flexibly. As Kolodny and other experts have explained in the Annual Public Health ReviewIn her advocacy through "educational" campaigns and astronomical research, Purdue explained how opioids in general are safe and effective – even spreading the word "opiophobia", suggesting that doctors were irrationally fearful of prescribing opioids. opioids.
The marketing push has worked; Doctors began to prescribe the drug more and more. But as the use of this drug as an analgesic has increased, its negative effects have increased: Between 1999 and 2017, nearly 200,000 overdose deaths have been linked to painkillers. As Lopez wrote, "Much of this can be linked to OxyContin and other legal opioid analgesics, people who even use illicit opioids like heroin to retrace often their initial opioid consumption – which made them hooked – to painkillers and painkillers. Purdue and the Sacklers.
Purdue is facing a historic settlement, but some attorneys general say that is not enough.
This year marked a dramatic change in the way communities affected by opioid addiction are addressing the problem: they have begun to sue drug manufacturers in court.
Earlier this year, Massachusetts and New York filed suit in federal court, joining other states, counties and tribes to make known that the Sackler family continued to market harmful drugs, than drugs used to treat opioid-induced addiction in society. even after admitting to having deformed the addictive effects of OxyContin. These court challenges have multiplied in recent months and hundreds of additional municipalities have filed lawsuits against the company.
This week, many lawyers involved in each case expressed support for an agreement with the Sackler family that would bring about $ 12 billion to the victims, including $ 3 billion from the family's personal fortune. But 25 states – including New York – and the District of Columbia said the deal was not strong enough and did not force the Sackler family to part with enough of his personal assets.
As Vox's German Lopez reported earlier this week, the deal forces Purdue to declare bankruptcy and dissolve, but does not force him to admit wrongdoing. A new company would form at the dissolution of Purdue and continue to sell OxyContin. the proceeds from sales would go to the plaintiffs and the company would also give drugs for the treatment of drug addiction and overdoses:
The purpose of the lawsuits is not only to keep Purdue and others allegedly involved in the epidemic of opioids responsible for the crisis, but also to force them to pay for treatment against the addiction that could help fight the epidemic. In the United States, the treatment is notoriously underfunded, and in recent years, experts have urged the federal government to invest tens of billions of dollars in the establishment of a treatment infrastructure. (For reference, a study conducted in 2017 by the Council of Economic Advisers of the White House associates a year of crisis with opioids to economic losses of 500 billion dollars.)
Some politicians and activists have gone further than prosecutions, demanding not only that the manufacturers and distributors of opioids pay the financial loss they have caused, but that they be held criminally responsible. Several Democratic presidential candidates have proposed a bill to empower the various leaders on the role they play in the over-prescription of opioids.
Letitia James of New York is one of those Attorneys General who believes that the regulations do not go far enough and strive to make every Sackler personally responsible for the epidemic.
In pleading his case against the Sackler family, his office filed subpoenas to family-related financial institutions. This is one of those subpoenas that uncovered the undeclared electronic transfers, which were made through several anonymous financial institutions, mainly Swiss bank accounts. Some of these transfers were quite large: a bank transfer worth $ 64 million and passed through the Channel Islands, according to the court record on Friday.
And James alleges that at least one family member, Mortimer Sackler, a former Purdue board member, has used real estate as a multimillion-dollar townhouse he owned on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to hide assets from the courts.
A spokesman for Mortimer Sackler denied that the former board member, or a member of his family, had tried to do anything under the book.
"These transfers dating back ten years are perfectly legal and appropriate in all respects," said a spokesman in a statement. "It is a cynical attempt by the bureau of a hostile group of AGs to generate slanderous headlines in an attempt to torpedo a mutually beneficial settlement supported by many other states that would send billions of dollars to communities and communities. to people in the country who need help. "
James' office obviously does not share the views, similar to his counterpart in Oregon, who, in filing the complaint in that state, alleged that the Sackler family had personally taken about 11 billions of dollars to their business over the last decade, in a way that enriched the family and deprived it of food. society to declare bankruptcy.
It remains to be seen whether the new allegations will lead to an updated settlement. But even as the settlement moves forward as it is currently drafted, some states (like New York) will continue with their own lawsuits, which could result in further damage for the Sacklers. And as some legal experts have told The New York Times, if James and other Attorneys General continued to find evidence that leads to allegations such as the one made by New York on Friday, the Sacklers, particularly those who have served Purdue in an official capacity may be at risk of criminal charges.
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