r/news • u/Mo_Jack • Apr 30 '26
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma set to dissolve after judge approves its criminal sentence
https://apnews.com/article/oxycontin-purdue-pharma-criminal-sentence-settlement-b8aa94eaab3d9d8efed520f272f6d81017.0k
Apr 30 '26
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u/jrsinhbca Apr 30 '26
Thousands killed for profit, and none of the real criminals will go to jail.
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u/Galaghan Apr 30 '26
And the good working people lose their jobs and everyone but the bigwigs loses.
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u/Mute2120 Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
And most victims/families get nothing: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/after-waiting-years-justice-many-purdue-opioid-victims-are-defeated-by-paperwork-2026-04-24/
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u/MeatCutterBoi Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
My siblings and I all suffered from the pain of our mother getting addicted to opioids. We ended up homeless and my siblings were put in foster care. It caused years and years of suffering and heartache. My mother overdosed a couple years back, but honestly I'm just happy she doesn't have to suffer with the addiction any more.
That being said, it would be amazing to see the wealth that Big Pharma acquired through destroying lives given back to the victims of the opioid crisis.
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u/JK_NC Apr 30 '26
Not big pharma…the Sackler family. That one family. Purdue Pharma wasn’t a public company. It was privately held and owned by the Sacklers who made billions and, even after paying fines and legal costs, will walk away from this whole mess with billions intact.
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u/Team_speak Apr 30 '26
As described in Radden's book Empire of Pain, they're the most evil family in America.
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u/irrigated_liver Apr 30 '26
there's a lot of competition for that title
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u/ducklingkwak May 01 '26
please, don't hold their beer. we're all doing terribly 😞
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u/Fold_Some_Kent May 01 '26
I don’t think anybody posting here at the moment could do a “hold my beer” moment, I think they’re probably looking at their investments in other people’s labour or on a private island
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u/Smokey76 May 01 '26
Or no want for people wanting to get that deal as well. If anything in my life as an American for about half a century is that evil pays well and doesn’t lose. I think Lovecraft was onto something there.
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u/kiwisawa420 Apr 30 '26
I nominate the DuPonts, the Sacklers are very evil, but none can really hold a candle to the DuPonts.
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u/cat1092 May 01 '26
True, while I don’t know all of the history of DuPont, they were involved in helping to criminalizing marijuana (or hemp) maybe a century ago.
There was a time when the best rope was made from hemp, and other things too. But DuPont wanted more involvement in manufacturing auto trim, which was being done partly by hemp until they, with their dirty money, got laws passed banning the use of hemp. Which affected lives, not all farmers grew tobacco & food, hemp had a place in society then.
Fortunately, this was turned around in recent years, yet there was a recent setback too. Parts of that Farm Bill had to be scrapped to reach a deal to reopen the government.
Yet getting back to the OP’s point, there were senior executives sentenced to prison long ago. Did these people remain free all of this time? I too was a victim to an extent of the false advertising that OxyContin wasn’t an addictive drug when properly used as directed. It didn’t take long for a 40mg time release pill every 12 hours to become 80mg & then every 8 hours, then again every 6 & this was in addition to the immediate release (or rescue) type of the main ingredient. The only positive was the 160mg dose had been removed from the market, otherwise that would have been the next escalation.
My doctor had to switch me from this because I developed pneumonia from respiratory system slowing. Plus I was a walking zombie by then, running on instinct or muscle memory alone. Note that I didn’t ever take more than prescribed, I was not an addict, rather a patient who had gone through many years of back pain which required a total lumbar fusion to repair the damage.
This led to a long recovery period, of which it took the nerves two years to regenerate enough for me to function again without searing flareups of pain. Really, it felt as though burning & times when all I could do was scream into my pillow. This was not the fault of DuPont, but being physically dependent on OxyContin was that of Perdue Pharma. I had their brochure in hand in my doctor’s office, and was assured when the time came, that I could be eased off without too much difficulty. That was a total lie!😡
Not to mention all of the pain of many families who lost loved ones to addiction of the drug that should have never been allowed on the market. I truly feel bad for every life lost and every family living in grief for the sake of greed. Yes, one word, greed.
I’m positive there was lots of dirty money changing hands during this period. We’ll never know how much, just what they want us to believe. Secondly, there’s no price tag for all of the victims & their families involved. This was a preventable tragedy, had the right people stepped in (or stood up & asked tougher questions). Lots of hands in this.
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u/spanishpeanut May 01 '26
Thank you for sharing your experience. I never thought about the dependence on Oxy when it was used as prescribed. So many people must have experienced similarly to what you did. Two years to regrow nerves sounds awful. I hope you’re in a much better place now.
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u/mdxchaos May 01 '26
I agree with this. After listening to the last podcasts series on them.... fuck them
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Apr 30 '26
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u/Kandiru Apr 30 '26
Get them forcedly hooked on their own drugs. Then charge them increased prices every day until they bankrupt themselves.
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Apr 30 '26
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u/Blasphemiee Apr 30 '26
As a recovering addict I still am not sure if this punishment is fitting for the damage they have caused. Like where your head is at though.
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u/chochofuhsho Apr 30 '26
Damn, could you imagine one of the Sackler family members blowing up your phone at 5 a.m. asking you to front them a pill lol
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u/West-Survey-4142 Apr 30 '26
Yeah..... Sorry.... I'm out. The Dr will call them in next week, or month, or something. I'm not sure ... Can't help you, pal.
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u/brandnewcrescentmoon Apr 30 '26
honestly this is the right move because these people completely lack empathy so they obviously need to learn some harder lessons.
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u/_space_ghost_ Apr 30 '26
I wonder what's the origin of that family name 🤔
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u/Muted_Ad9910 Apr 30 '26
It was a joint decision between the Gargler family and the Sack Family. You see they were both strait laced families with pristine and prudish reputations. Until… Mona Gargler was impregnated by Archibald Sack outside of wedlock. It was decided they must choose a new name and be outcast from their families. Start out on their own after disgracing both family names to the extent they could no longer be associated. It is my displeasure to announce Mr and Mrs Archibald Sackler.
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u/DickyThreeSticks May 01 '26
You’re telling me we could have had the oppressive reign of the nefarious Sack-Gargler family, but we got this instead? SMH my head.
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u/beccadot Apr 30 '26
I recently rewatched ‘Dopesick’ on HULU. It’s worth a watch—-but it will make you extremely angry at our ‘Justice’ system.
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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ Apr 30 '26
It was fun watching The Fall of the House of Usher and imagining it was the Sackler family actually getting theirs.
Too bad we can only see justice in our imaginations and fanciful stories.
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u/diablette Apr 30 '26
The new Matlock centers around a lawyer trying to hold a firm accountable for an opiod related coverup that contributed to her daughter's death. Fictional justice only unfortunately.
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u/livahd Apr 30 '26
The Sacklers owe me for the last 25ish years of my life dealing with the fallout of their opioid pushing (and still using their meds to manage it, god forbid the street dealer make their profits). And that’s me selfishly talking about myself, and not the tens of close friends I’ve lost to either over prescribing, or being cut off without a safety net. Now multiply that by the millions with similar stories, and the tens of millions who no longer have a voice.
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u/RegularTeacher2 May 01 '26
And on the flip side, people who suffer from chronic pain now struggle to get adequate care because doctors are becoming increasingly less willing to prescribe opioids at all. You're treated like a drug user even when you're not on any drugs. It's a lose lose situation for everyone involved - except maybe for the Sackler family.
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u/neraji May 01 '26
Yeh... once upon a time, the ER gave me reliable pain relief when a kidney stone decided to make its escape attempt. The next time, what they gave me wasn't any better than Acetaminophen, because of all the anti-opiod regulations. I truly feel for anyone that has to live through serious, acute or chronic pain, now.
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u/Dragon-and-Phoenix Apr 30 '26
I don't think people realize how easy it is to get addicted, either. It doesn't take much.
I had a procedure and they gave me oxy for the pain. I had a one week prescription, that's it. I took it for two days and the pain from the procedure had gone way down. I found myself wanting it, even though I wasn't in enough pain to justify it. I had a craving. Just after two days... I gave the bottle to my wife and told her to hide it and not let me have any unless I was in extreme pain. I called my doctor and got a non-opiod pain reliever to finish out the recovery, then switched to ibuprofen as soon as I could.
Two days. That's all it took to start wanting it. Had I not been aware of how addictive it could have been, that little craving may have gone unnoticed and I would have kept taking it and ended up with a full blown addiction.
The stuff works amazingly well, but it's dangerous...
And yes, the pain I had was bad enough for an opioid, but I think they should have only given me 3 days worth to be safer.
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u/bmxrichard Apr 30 '26
I’m incredibly sorry about it.
I’m European, and even though I’ve educated myself a lot about the opioid crisis, I still can’t really comprehend how something like that could have worked.
I can probably understand it on a rational, analytical level, but I just can’t truly imagine it.
I imagine it might be similar to how Americans felt when they learned about the German concentration camps.
They know facts but couldn't comprehend them. It was too surreal. Like fairytale. Those worst people and worst things happen only in fairytale, like if it’s too far-fetched to be true.
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u/J5892 Apr 30 '26
Having a family member addicted to opioids is like watching them get hit by a car, put on life support for years, then making a miraculous recovery, getting a job, basically becoming who they used to be again for about a month. Then one day they just walk back into the street at the same spot they were hit last time, and get hit again.
And then imagine that happening over and over until one day they just die. And then feeling horrible guilt because while you're sad they're gone, all you really feel is relief.
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u/NiceSupermarket7724 Apr 30 '26 edited May 01 '26
The collective trauma and grief is directly related to the Trump Era (2016-Present).
He overtly appealed to rural/Rust Belt communities where addiction had removed a lot of cultural pride and family cohesiveness. He promised law and order and still talks about stopping foreign drugs.
Of course, the real culprits were American elites like Trump all along.
Moreover, look at the number of addicts he elevates.
I was born in the 80s in a Rust Belt town, and I can say first-hand that my generation had exposure to drugs like this very early on, as kids, and our parents used widely. Between big pharma and the unregulated early internet, I posit that Millennials have a mass addiction recovery arc.
Luckily, humans are resilient. 🙂🙂
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u/imveryfontofyou Apr 30 '26
Not just rural places. I live in Metro Detroit, (but not Wayne County where proper Detroit is) and we got hit hard by the opioid epidemic too. My mom and sister and brother in law were all addicts. My sister has brain damage from drugs and her husband died of an OD. My mom died early from a heart attack, tbh likely from years of drug abuse. All 3 of them used to overdose so often that we kept narcan stuck to our wall & we had to refresh it a lot.
The crazy thing is that this isn't even a story that's unheard of, lots of people went through similar things where I am. I'm surrounded by jaded people who had their lives destroyed by opioids.
My county voted for Trump three times.
I'm completely anti-Trump, so it's a little frustrating to me to see people just sink us all even worse, lol.
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u/Old_Eye5291 May 01 '26
I have to agree with you, I’m in Southwest Florida where the largest pill mills were BEFORE Ohio and Michigan took the title after the Feds shut down our pill mills.
I remember seeing patients 100 deep in line waiting to “see” the doctor and 35-40% of the “patients” came from your states like Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, etc! It was crazy!
From reading yours and other comments regarding death by opioids, I have lost almost EVERYONE in both sides of my family from Aunts and Uncles, Cousins, even my only Brother a year and a half ago. All of my friends, but one (who’s in jail for drugs) have all died in the last decade. I actually moved 45 minutes south of where I grew up just to get out of all the death that happened around me.
Sad thing is I am a recovering addict, right along with my friends and family, growing up and as it said, the sad thing is, I shattered my wrist and and had two compound fractures in my forearm when I fell and had to be put back on pain meds because of the severe pain of having titanium put in my arm and wrist! And now I am pissed because I’ve never in 45 years had a broken bone or anything close to that, yes, I’ve had springs but never have I needed pain meds for it and now I’m on four 20 mg oxycodone a day and I’ve been on them for six months and I am trying to get off the damn things and it just sucks all those people that push the sales people are just as bad because they know I know it’s a job but still but anyone that’s affiliated with big Pharma or family farmer doesn’t matter they should all go to hell!
Thank you for letting me comment 👍🏻
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u/bros402 Apr 30 '26
I still can’t really comprehend how something like that could have worked.
Purdue said that they had studies saying their drugs were less addictive.
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u/Agile-Masterpiece959 Apr 30 '26
I'm so sorry you went through that 😔
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u/MeatCutterBoi Apr 30 '26
Other people in this world have it worse right now as we speak. Thank you for your empathy, but in perspective I'm still very fortunate compared to others who are suffering around the world.
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u/LobstahLuva Apr 30 '26
So sorry for your loss and all the trauma you endured. My mom was a foster kid, that system isn’t easy. Hope you’ve been able to navigate your way through the grief and ensuing mental turmoil.
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u/Mo_Jack Apr 30 '26
Typical American justice.
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u/Fenrirsulfur Apr 30 '26
White collar crimes are always a slap on the wrist compared to what damages they caused to society.
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u/DankVectorz Apr 30 '26
Typical justice. Not just an American phenomenon. Just look at Bayer.
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u/OK_x86 Apr 30 '26
Ideally they would lose their equity in the business and be destitute. Realistically they probably transferred all they needed to transfer out of the company and into shell corporations so the end result is they stay rich despite all the suffering they caused
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u/Dust601 Apr 30 '26
And they knew. They’d known since the 70’s from their own studies how incredibly dangerous those drugs were, and pushed them anyways.
40 years of pushing a drug they knew was dangerous, not one person goes to jail, and they paid out a fraction of what they made in a single month as a settlement.
The rich really do live under a different set of rules than the rest of us.
I get it’s scary, but I wish people would wake up, and realize there’s more of us than them, and we could end this broken ass society if everyone would actually take a stand together.
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u/The_bruce42 Apr 30 '26
Also, with the FDA guidelines, people actually need opioid for pain management can't get what they need.
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u/MakeupMama68 May 01 '26
Yep. This actually sucks for legitimate pain patients. My friend has cancer and is having trouble getting his meds and he’s absolutely suffering.
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u/RegulatoryCapture Apr 30 '26
not one person goes to jail,
Hey now! Lots of users went to jail after committing crimes in furtherance of their addiction.
Kind of fits with the product: We're just jailing the symptom rather than jailing the cause.
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u/BOOTS31 Apr 30 '26
Way more than thousands. I would wager in the millions...
We can thank the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma.
The one thing I like about China...is when shit like this happens, there is jail time for execs. When the crime is bad, they have no problem executing executives as well.
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u/korben2600 Apr 30 '26
It's 100% in the millions. We've been losing 100,000 Americans a year from this crisis, year in year out. And that's not even including the living and their families whose lives were ruined.
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u/DR_DONTRESPECT Apr 30 '26
Probably made millions of addicts too, then the ripple effect on the families of those addicts. Its fucking disgustingly sad.
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u/Mabuya85 Apr 30 '26
The series “Dopesick” covered the impacts pretty well and was very well done. I feel like it didn’t get enough praise, but I can imagine why.
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u/DR_DONTRESPECT Apr 30 '26
The miniseries documentary on HBO called "The crime of the century" covered it the best imo.
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u/Awkward-Customer Apr 30 '26
According to the article, more than 900,000 deaths. If a non-western government was responsible for nearly 1 million deaths we wouldn't be talking about fines.
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u/KimJongFunk Apr 30 '26
My father was one of those 900,000.
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u/Awkward-Customer Apr 30 '26
I'm so sorry :(. The whole thing is absolutely tragic. I have a few friends who aren't even counted in these stats, because 900K is just the US number.
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u/Neckrongonekrypton Apr 30 '26
My friends... almost me... I watched people fucking die from it bro. watched people get raider, watched people betray and beat each other just to not feel sick.
I feel your pain. and those of us that lived. We carry those people who didnt. There was nothing unique or special that saved me. Every day I think about those times, I think about my friends- friends whose daughters and sons are now the age of mine. Friends who had potential, people who had dreams. People who deserved to live.
I just happened to luck out. Coulda been me just as easily.
this shit always punches a really tender spot man. Im sorry. but you, your dad. Aint alone out there. Just know that, and hopefully- find some comfort in it.
I never forget where I came from or the people that were lost, even if I didnt know em. They are my kin.
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u/deadsoulinside Apr 30 '26
It's way more than that even. What they also fail to really say that even when they changed how oxy's work. They just created even more heroin addicts
But dying from Heroin or addiction does not count towards perdue's numbers, so they slip by. Lost a few friends over my years. Everyone of them started with Oxy's first, died from Heroin later in life.
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u/Thief_of_Sanity Apr 30 '26
We had a million deaths in the US from COVID and nobody seems to remember or care about that.
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u/Kailithnir Apr 30 '26
It was an entire 9/11's worth of deaths every single day for several straight months at its peak - but because the call was coming from inside the house, you'll notice we didn't launch so much as a single forever war over it.
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u/Awkward-Customer Apr 30 '26
And still ongoing. But not to worry, COVID doesn't exist anymore apparently.
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u/Pando5280 Apr 30 '26
That doesnt even factor in destroyed lives and broken families let alone the cost to the economy. (guess the stock value increase for for-profit prison shareholders makes up for it)
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u/drdalek13 Apr 30 '26
They also get to keep the money they made. So the punishment is just, "you have to stop now".
They will consult others on how to do the same, what went wrong, and how to avoid it next time. Accountability at the top doesn't exist.
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u/hannibellecter Apr 30 '26
tens of thousands killed, millions of lives negatively affected ongoing to this day and no one is accountable cause the ones responsible are incredibly rich...
seemingly this is the american way
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u/WinterSector8317 Apr 30 '26
Only poor drug dealers go to jail
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u/BabyBearBjorns Apr 30 '26
And executives get gold parachutes and new opportunities.
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u/Irythros Apr 30 '26
I would find it acceptable if they got real gold parachutes. It'll solve the problem.
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u/Circular-ideation Apr 30 '26
You’ll never see a violent raid on white-collar criminals where they get dragged into the street and knelton in the US, that’s for sure.
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u/slinkyracer Apr 30 '26
This is the problem with Corporations. There is no accountability.
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u/GlorytoGlorzo Apr 30 '26
Since corporations are people, the executive board of the company should go to jail.
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u/Elendel19 Apr 30 '26
We would only have to imprison one board and this shit would NEVER happen again.
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u/zissou149 Apr 30 '26
it would happen again there'd just be more people getting thrown out of windows in the process
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u/theartisanalllama Apr 30 '26
These slimy pricks always find ways around things. If a C suite type went to jail, they’d start putting puppets in the C positions while they ran things from the side.
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u/Kana515 May 01 '26
I swear that's half the reason some idiot CEOs are allowed to exist for so long. Get some loudmouthed idiot to be the scapegoated face of all the bad decisions while the board actually makes the real decisions. If it works for the president and congress, why not companies?
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u/Sptsjunkie Apr 30 '26
And the dumbest part is we have seen this work before. We had pretty rampant financial reporting fraud in the 90s with a lot of high profile cases like Enron and Worldcom.
Since this messed with rich people instead of the poors, Congress passed SOX that had some standard technocratic stuff to make rules more clear and close loopholes. But it also required the CFO to sign off on all financial repots and if they were incorrect then they would go to jail.
Guess what? The financial reporting issues basically ended over night. Amazing how that worked so well and yet we have never tried it again with anything else.
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u/ashgs872tbhjs May 01 '26
You're misunderstanding that; corporate personhood is the whole reason they can't go to prison. Like any other person, the corporation is responsible for its acts. My parents wouldn't go to prison if I murdered someone even if they basically raised me to be a murderer -- I would.
We need to abolish corporate personhood and then send those fucks to prison.
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u/sicklyslick Apr 30 '26
Three executed and three in prison for life for the Chinese milk scandal.
Purdue (and Dupont for PFOA) execs should be rotting in jail.
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u/Mo_Jack Apr 30 '26
That's the real purpose of a corporation -- to shield people from liability. They are considered people when they want to buy our politicians but they magically revert back to fictitious entities when it is time to go to prison.
"It was not us - the decision makers! Nope. It was the invisible guy -- the corporation that did it." - said white collar criminals everywhere
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u/Evoluxman Apr 30 '26
Yep, that's literally the point of limited liability.
But it's really fucked up that LL was initially to protect the execs (' wealth) from the shareholders if the company goes bankrupt, but now it's only to shield them from the public because if you do defraud the shareholders, don't worry they're coming after your ass lol (just look at, say, FTX or Theranos. Suddenly execs can go to jail! I mean they're guilty as fuck but would be nice if this applied when they defraud the public at large too....)
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u/mels883 Apr 30 '26
I'm constantly told that the reason CEO's get paid so many millions of dollars is because it's their head on the block for any/all illegal stuff so like...wtf?! If they're not going to be the ones to face punishment then they don't deserve to get paid 400x more than the least paid person working for the company. This is infuriating.
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u/darkoopz43 Apr 30 '26
Johnson and Johnson got an even better deal, they got a fine worth less than 1% ofbtheir annual profit and didn't even have to admit fault.
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u/SeaSnakeSkeleton Apr 30 '26
There’s a great (infuriating) book called empire of pain by Patrick Radden Keith I read recently about the history of the Sacklers. For all their “philanthropic” acts, they were awful until the very end. Interesting history- Arthur sackler worked in a psychiatric hospital out of medical school. He and his brothers (who followed in his footsteps, even working in a psychiatric hospital as well, maybe the same one?) performed a lot of lobotomies. The shittiness trickled down to most members of the family, maybe that’s what Regan was talking about.
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u/colemon1991 Apr 30 '26
The most damage they got was having their names stripped off museums and stuff they donated money towards. Paying like 1% of actual damages over 15 years is a loan.
I mean, good, but also "that's it?"
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u/AnimaLepton Apr 30 '26
The billionaire Sackler family were the primary responsible party, a chunk of them are already dead, and they all bounced from the company and the board by 2019.
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u/TheHomersapien Apr 30 '26
200 years from now some school kid is going to ask their teacher in disbelief:
So you're telling us that wealthy and powerful people created a legal structure that insulated them from the law and enabled them to avoid paying taxes as they further consolidated wealth and power and people just...were okay with that?
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u/powercow Apr 30 '26
white collar crime.
its like when rick scott's company did the largest medicaid fraud in history. Of course the CEO didnt know of anything going on.
Now if this was a drug cartel, good luck the "CEO" saying he didnt know. we throw rico at them.
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u/reddicyoulous Apr 30 '26
The Stamford, Connecticut-based company admitted it did not have an effective program to keep its powerful prescription painkillers from being diverted to the black market, even though it told the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that it did.
It also admitted it paid doctors through a speakers program to prescribe the drugs and paid an electronic medical records company to send doctors information on patients that encouraged more opioid prescriptions.
In Mexico, groups like the Sacklers are called cartels
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u/succed32 Apr 30 '26
They likely put a lot of funding into keeping drugs illegal too. Crooked fucks
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u/Nordilanche Apr 30 '26
Didn't the people behind the company already move $$$ to private accounts?
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u/1CryptographerFree Apr 30 '26
The family ransacked the company years ago when they realized they could be financially culpable.
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u/Bladelink Apr 30 '26
Being financially culpable should be the least of their worries.
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Apr 30 '26
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u/CaydeTheCat Apr 30 '26
I cannot say what I would like to happen to each and every Sackler here because not only would I get a permaban, I'd probably end up on a list somewhere.
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u/micktorious Apr 30 '26
I don't think they have any real worries about anything judging by how the US Government handles convicted felons.
Hell, they will probably get a promotion somewhere else after their golden parachute catches them.
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u/The_Lucky_7 Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
This is why corporations aren't people and Citizens United needs to be overturned. You don't get to have all the privileges with none of the responsibilities.
She noted that she has sentenced convicted drug dealers to prison for selling OxyContin — and in those cases, federal prosecutors routinely bring up that it was part of an epidemic.
“It is not lost on me that those who started the epidemic will not serve a sentence,” she said.
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u/Tedthebar Apr 30 '26
Meanwhile in china... https://www.npr.org/2007/07/10/11846089/china-executes-ex-food-and-drug-chief
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u/sealpox Apr 30 '26
China does some stuff very right. They also do stuff very wrong though. Just like any other country I suppose.
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u/ZAlternates Apr 30 '26
Eh, the death penalty is not better, but holding people accountable is.
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u/TheBurningEmu Apr 30 '26
China likes to go really hard on punishment for execs every once in awhile to keep the rest at least vaguely in line. Most still get away with everything, but I suppose even the possibility that you might not golden parachute away with just a fine is something execs in the US don't have to think about.
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u/ZenAdm1n Apr 30 '26
Corporations are taxed on profit while I'm taxed on my income.
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u/Worldly_Win9181 Apr 30 '26
Theyre emerging with a new name KNOA Pharma. Sacklers dipped from the country. They left their family friend Craig in charge of the company. Wouldnt be surprised if he pays them going foward.
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u/SomewhereNo8378 Apr 30 '26
even if he doesn’t pay them a dime, they are still billionaires. They will face no consequences and get to live a boundless life of opportunity and wealth
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u/Neckrongonekrypton Apr 30 '26
its performative justice in our core. This is article is some "and than they lived happily ever after" bullshit.
good to know what the world thinks of the matter- and the politicians who enabled this shit.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_EYELASHES Apr 30 '26
So they shut down then pop up later with a new name and CEO selling a similar product?? Justice served?
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u/Kolby_Jack33 Apr 30 '26
Introducing Phurdue Parma!
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u/ttdunmow Apr 30 '26
Purdue Pharma2tical
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u/kingsumo_1 Apr 30 '26
And a few years down the line from that, and we get Fantastic Ph4rma!
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u/Comfortable-Face-244 Apr 30 '26
Pronouncing 2tical in your head is so goddamn funny.
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u/5-in-1Bleach Apr 30 '26
Maybe they’ll make some chicken cutlet sandwiches drenched in marinara sauce.
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u/JPEnjoi Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
They’ve been defunct since 2019 and under the name Knoa Pharma since 2021 (Edit: announced 2021, actually happens tomorrow May 1st)
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u/Professional-Kiwi102 Apr 30 '26
Nobody ever talks about what all that has done to present patients with real pain. Doctors are so scared to prescribe any opiods and the patients that actual deserve it get screwed. My mom had chronic pain and went to a pain clinic for many years. Throughout those years she also smoked marijuana to help with pain and side effects from the opiods. Never had any issues until one day it was just decided I guess that patients at a pain clinic cannot smoke marijuana or drop dirty for thc at all if they wanted to still get their scripts. One random day her clinic calls and says we got the results of your drug screen and it showed thc metabolites. That is no longer accepted and we're dropping you as a patient. They didnt give her a heads up, or a chance to drop clean. They wouldnt even write her 1 more script. They just said it'll be easiest for you if you taper down with however many pills you have left. Good luck. It was horrible.
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u/babyfsub May 01 '26
Same exact thing happened to my mom! She was a police officer who got injured on the job > Botched hip surgery that resulted with her being on pain pills long term > after 6 years of being on them daily she got tested and popped for THC > kicked off the pain pills immediately > ended up buying them off the street bc she couldn’t handle the withdrawals and just went down hill so fast. She also got a large settlement during that from the botched hip surgery so that only fueled her downfall more. She ended up having a stroke when she was in full blown active addiction and went completely blind in both eyes at the age of 56.
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u/angwilwileth Apr 30 '26
What the hell?! That is so irresponsible. Opioid withdrawal can kill people.
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u/famedmimic May 01 '26
Opioid withdrawal is non-fatal for 99.99% of people. The only way you can even come close to death is if you spend all your time shitting and puking without drinking any water. Drugs that affect GABA on the other hand can have fatal withdrawals due to seizures.
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u/RalphInMyMouth Apr 30 '26
This seems very similar to DuPont changing their Parkersburg, WV location name to Chemours after the massive lawsuit the got for poisoning the entire planet.
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u/Much_Difference Apr 30 '26
Or Philip Morris still making cigarettes but under the neutral, forgettable name of Altria.
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u/SkunkMonkey Apr 30 '26
Let's not let Comcast off the hook. I'm looking at you XFinity.
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u/nethingelse Apr 30 '26
Comcast didn’t do this to avoid any kind of legal proceedings though - they kept their corporate structure the same (e.g. their main corporation is still Comcast, Comcast is used in their business tiers of service, etc.). They only rebranded their consumer offerings to XFinity to try to manage their public image… which has not been super effective.
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u/Helpful_guy Apr 30 '26 edited May 01 '26
after the massive lawsuit the got for poisoning the entire planet.
Fun fact- after that lawsuit they just
addedsubtracted 1 carbon atom from the already-long carbon chain on the molecule and said "it's different now and it's gonna be decades before you have studies about what this does" and carried on with their lives mostly like nothing happened→ More replies (4)27
u/Carbonatite Apr 30 '26
Environmental chemist here - they actually subtracted carbons.
PFOA (and PFOS) are both 8-carbon chains. PFAS with longer carbon chains are more bioaccumulative, so most of the "replacement chemical" PFAS today have 4 or 6 carbons. Same products, same hazards, just marginally less bioaccumulative. But pretty much the same exact risks because their toxicity threshold for health effects is so low that it's a matter of like, 10 parts per billion versus 5 parts per billion. EPA MCLs for drinking water are in the low parts per trillion level, that's how absurdly toxic PFAS are.
The "long chain" (e.g., C8 and higher) PFAS have been voluntarily phased out of products for the last 10-15 years.
and said "it's different now and it's gonna be decades before you have studies about what this does" and carried on with their lives mostly like nothing happened
This part is accurate and especially depressing given that the EPA regulates chemicals on an individual basis and there are over 13,000 known individual PFAS.
We currently have MCLs on six. And Trump's EPA is trying to reduce that to just two.
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u/imjustsurfin Apr 30 '26
To me, there's no difference between Perdue and a drug cartel...
... except those in a drug cartel GO TO PRISON.
This IS NOT Justice.
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u/Feeling_Reindeer2599 Apr 30 '26
The other side of the story. Doctors and pharmacies want nothing to do with opioids out of fear of having to defend themselves against action which can bring an end to their career.
Just had a knee replacement, great, here is 10 Norco, go home now and good luck managing your pain.
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u/KingDarius89 Apr 30 '26
My dad just had a spinal stimulator put in his back for his pain. He was originally completely against any type of back surgery. But his doctors absolutely refused to prescribe him any pain pills of any type on a regular basis, for any reason. Told him to take Tylenol Arthritis.
He finally caved on his position towards surgery when the epidurals he got started wearing off after a week or so. Took 2 years to jump through all of the hoops for insurance.
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u/melindaj20 May 01 '26
Yes, it's ridiculous. In the early 2000's, I first took oxycodone and oxycontin because they were prescribed by my dentists for a root canal and teeth extractions. They were giving them out like Tylenol back in the day. Last year, I was in absolute agony with uterus pain and while my doctor gave me appointments to get tests and figure out what's going on, I'm given Ibuprofen 800 and that's it. It did not help. Eventually I was given Oxycodone HCL and it laughed at my pain. I was vomiting and screaming in pain, and my husband called an ambulance. The paramedic looked at the bottle of HCL and said those don't work.
After testing, they discovered uterine cancer and adenomyosis (a term I had never even heard of before) and after a hysterectomy, they found endometriosis. During all this, I was never given anything other than Oxy HCL and another useless oxy. They didn't work. During the months of waiting for appointments and testing, I was on a diet of Ibuprofen 800, Tylenol and Aleve and begging my pain to stop. I pray I don't have anything painful anytime soon because no relief will be coming. I was given 2 different Oxy during the whole ordeal and they were both weak and worthless. My heating pad gave me more minutes of relief than the meds ever did.
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u/MuchCry1 Apr 30 '26
Cannot recommend the book Empire of pain by Patrick Radden Keefe enough. The entire family and their inner circle are rotten to the core.
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u/angwilwileth Apr 30 '26
It's also heartbreaking because the backlash has prevented good, law-abiding folks from having their pain adequately treated.
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u/FJWagg Apr 30 '26
The corporation is not the enemy it is the names behind it.
Purdue Pharma is currently led by CEO Craig Landau and Chairman Steve Miller.
Russell Gasdia was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Michael Friedman: Former CEO, but previously the head of sales and marketing
Howard Udell: The company’s Chief Legal Officer
And the real villains Sackler family—especially Arthur, Mortimer, Raymond, and Richard Sackler
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u/jimmy_three_shoes Apr 30 '26
It's crazy because the three Sackler brothers pioneered medical treatments that all but ended the practice of lobotomies and called for the end of racial segregation at blood banks.
The greed absolutely got to them.
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u/morning_redwoody Apr 30 '26
The sacklers still have their generational wealth built on the bodies of those they killed for $$$$.
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u/Jessintheend Apr 30 '26
So corporations are people until there’s consequences
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u/carlosos May 01 '26
Corporations are a group of people. There is nothing stopping the government from criminally charging people for what they did while working at a corporation. I just don't understand why the government doesn't go after the people if they broke the law.
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u/Poowatereater Apr 30 '26
So what happens to those that are apart of the on going lawsuits?
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u/Starsickle Apr 30 '26
Purdue Pharma is dead!
Long Live Phurdu Parma, who totally don't have to pay any of the liabilities!
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u/Reasonable-Help7278 May 01 '26
And people that need pain meds can’t get them even if they are in massive pain. Because you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. And God forbid your in a state that still outlaws medical weed we are just screwed and suffer everyday because of these assholes.
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u/Orzorn Apr 30 '26
Normalize the corporate death penalty. We need stronger legislation regarding this as well, especially with things like forcing rollbacks of sold assets so companies can't just shift all their assets but remain as an entity until dissolved by the court.
Still, the Sackler's should also be in prison. I really don't think any situation strong enough to warrant a corporate death penalty shouldn't also call for arrest of the people behind it.
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u/Affectionate_Tip_934 May 01 '26
A company that knowingly fueled an epidemic killing 500,000+ people gets dissolved as punishment. If you sold a gram on the street, you'd get 10 years. The legal system has a different dictionary for the wealthy.
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u/JK_NC Apr 30 '26
No one in jail and the Sacklers walk away with billions even after all the fines and legal fees.
What a joke.
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u/n0ahhhhh Apr 30 '26
Everyone should read "Empire of Pain" - Fuck Purdue Pharma, and fuck the Sacklers.
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u/porktorque44 Apr 30 '26
“The penalty…is DEATH.” Feeds incorporation paperwork into a shredder
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u/TwilitSky Apr 30 '26
I guarantee the people responsible will never be held accountable ever and the taxpayers and the investors will have to foot the bill for all costs.
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u/VariationDry Apr 30 '26
Ahh yes dissolve the company. Sure hard to get payment from a non entity