The American laboratory Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, which owns it, have reached an agreement with fifteen American states under which they will have to pay a total of 7.4 billion dollars for their role in the opioid crisis in the United States.
According to a press release Thursday from Letitia JamesAttorney General of the State of New York, the agreement – which must still be validated by a court – provides for the family to pay up to 6.5 billion dollars over fifteen years and the pharmaceutical laboratory 900 million.
“The Sackler family relentlessly sought to profit at the expense of vulnerable patients and played a central role in the beginning and spread of the opioid epidemic,” commented Letitia James.
External content
This external content cannot be displayed because it may collect personal data. To view this content you must authorize the category Social networks.
Accept More info
The infamous painkiller OxyContin
Purdue Pharma manufactured the painkiller OxyContin, the overprescription of which is generally considered to have triggered the opioid crisis in the United States. The laboratory abandoned opiates in 2018.
The Sacklers are accused of having aggressively promoted this drug, while knowing of its highly addictive nature, which earned them tens of billions of dollars.
A tragic outcome
According to data from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), nearly 727,000 people died in the country between 1999 and 2022 from an overdose linked to taking opiates, obtained on prescription or illegally. .
For the first time since 2018, the number of deaths linked to opiates (mainly fentanyl) decreased slightly in 2023.
-According to the National Center on Addiction (NIDA), more than 115 million pills containing illegal fentanyl were seized by law enforcement in 2023 in the United States. This is 2,300 times more than in 2017.
>> Read also: “In Los Angeles, a dose of fentanyl costs less than food” et Podcast – Fentanyl, an American tragedy
The compensation announced Thursday must be used to finance programs to combat addiction and detoxification cures.
>> Review the subject of Update on the fight against addictions in the United States:
In addition to this financial sanction, he must “put an end to the control of Purdue by the Sacklers and prevent them from selling opiates in the United States,” noted the press release, specifying that the future of the company would be decided later.
Agreement too favorable to the family blocked
The Supreme Court of the United States blocked in June 2024 an agreement concluded in 2022 in particular with the fifty American states, relating to the payment of some six billion dollars, because it exempted the Sacklers from any future lawsuits from victims.
The new agreement “does not offer the Sacklers this automatic protection but provides consensual exemptions in exchange for the payments that the Sacklers will make” for fifteen years, the press release said.
Targeted by an avalanche of lawsuits, Purdue declared bankruptcy in 2019 but encountered several court rejections of its bankruptcy plan. Which led him to take the matter to the Supreme Court in Washington.
Large drug distributors such as the CVS, Walgreens and Walmart chains, a subsidiary of the French advertising giant Publicis and the consulting firm McKinsey have also been prosecuted for their role in this crisis.
afp/cab
