Friday, March 04, 2022

CAPITALI$M IS ADDICTION
Purdue Pharma deal has families deflated, angry but hopeful

By JOHN SEEWER and DAVE COLLINS

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Lynn Wencus of Wrentham, Mass., holds a sign for her son Jeff along with wearing a sign showing loved ones lost to OxyContin and Opioid overdoses, during a protest at Purdue Pharma headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Friday, Aug. 17, 2018. Wencus lost her son Jeff to a heroin overdose in 2017. OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and virtually all U.S. states have agreed to a new settlement of opioid lawsuits. The deal reached Thursday, March 3, 2022, would require members of the Sackler family who own the drugmaker to pay $5.5 billion to $6 billion in cash. They also apologized. A bankruptcy judge must still approve the deal. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

For those who lost loved ones in the opioid crisis, making sure the family behind OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma paid a price was never just about money. What many wanted was a chance to confront the Sackler family face to face, to make them feel their pain.

While some may get that chance — at least by video — under a tentative settlement reached Thursday that also would force the Sacklers to pay out billions, the families still are coming away feeling empty, conflicted and angry yet again. There’s a bit of hope mixed in, too.

Nothing, though, will bring back any of the lives lost or hold the Sacklers fully accountable, in their eyes.

“I’d like to see the Sacklers bleed all they can, but the bigger picture for me is what they’re doing to clean up the mess,” said Vicki Meyer Bishop of Clarksburg, Maryland, who lost her 45-year-old son, Brian Meyer, in 2017. “We’re all so very worried about the next generation and the next child who will be lost.”

The Sacklers, whose wealth has been estimated in court filings at over $10 billion, will get to hang on to a chunk of their vast fortune and be protected from current and future civil lawsuits over opioids.

The deal announced Thursday, which must be approved by a federal bankruptcy judge, requires the Sacklers to pay as much as $6 billion, with $750 million for victims and their survivors. Most of the rest will go to state and local governments to fight the crisis. They also must give up ownership of their company, with the new entity’s profits going toward fighting opioid addiction through treatment and education programs.

Some of the survivors of the opioid crisis and relatives of those who died will receive payments. But most will get just a few thousand dollars — not even enough to reimburse the cost of a funeral — and many more who have not filed claims already will be shut out altogether.

“These families do need to get something,” said Beth Schmidt, who started a support group in Sykesville, Maryland, after her son Sean died in 2013, one of 13 lost in their town in little over a year. “We have families that can’t afford to bury their children. They’re choosing cremation because it’s less expensive. They shouldn’t have to do that.”

The agreement also recommends that the victims be allowed to directly share their heartache with Sackler family members by videoconference at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

Meyer Bishop would love to face the Sacklers and show them a picture of her son that’s “so big they couldn’t look away.”

“It’s what I see before I fall asleep every night,” she said. “I don’t even know if that would touch them. I don’t think it would.”

The Sacklers have been cast as the leading villains in the country’s opioid crisis by activists who point to their lack of remorse and long-running efforts to shield their wealth while maintaining a lavish lifestyle. Their role in the epidemic was spotlighted in Hulu’s miniseries “Dopesick.”

half-million Americans have died from opioids over the past two decades, a toll that includes victims of prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin and illicit drugs such as heroin and fentanyl.

“Everyday this goes on, we lose all of these people,” said Lynn Wencus, of Wrentham, Massachusetts, whose son Jeff died of an overdose in 2017. “If states use the money the way it’s supposed to be, then we will be saving lives.”

It bothers her that more money won’t end up in the hands of the families, but she also knows nothing would make up for what she and so many others have lost.

“Even if I got a billion dollars, it’s not going to bring back my son,” she said.

In one of the hardest-fought provisions in the settlement, the Sacklers will be protected from future opioid lawsuits. While they weren’t given immunity from criminal charges, there have been no indications they will face any.

Allowing the Sacklers to avoid any more lawsuits or jail time is a dangerous message to send to the pharmaceutical industry or any other business, said activists who have fought for Purdue owners and company officials to be charged with crimes.

“What makes me most angry is they’re getting away with it,” said Tim Kramer, of Waterford Township, Michigan. “They’ve got more money than God, so it’s not going to hurt them. I’d like to see them go to prison, and a regular prison, not one of those resort prisons.”

His common law wife, LeeRae Conn, was 46 when she overdosed in 2018. He found out she was addicted soon after they met a decade earlier.

“No matter what she did, no matter what I did, she couldn’t get off it,” he said. “She tried.”

Sackler family members have never unequivocally offered an apology, but on Thursday issued a statement of regret about the toll of OxyContin.

The settlement comes more than two years after the Stamford, Connecticut-based company filed for bankruptcy while facing some 3,000 lawsuits that accused it of fueling the crisis by aggressively pushing sales of its signature painkiller.

An earlier settlement fell apart last year, but this time the Sacklers agreed to add another $1 billion and accepted other terms.

“It’s money, but there’s still no accountability,” said Liz Fitzgerald, of Southington, Connecticut, who said she wanted to hear a public apology.

She lost two adult sons, who first used OxyContin in high school, to overdoses in 2013 and 2017.

“My three children have lost two brothers, and I think that a lot more needs to be done to support families because of the traumatic PTSD. They just destroyed our lives,” she said.

“I have a granddaughter who lost her dad. No money in the world is going to bring back her dad,” Fitzgerald said. “How do you tell a 10-year child that your dad’s gone and not even understanding addiction? It’s just horrific.”

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Associated Press writers Geoff Mulvihill and Susan Haigh contributed to this report.


Purdue and US states agree new $6bn settlement for opioid litigation
March 4, 2022


Members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma have agreed to increase their financial contribution to a settlement with US states over their role in the opioid crisis to $6bn.

It follows a decision by a group of US states to drop their opposition to provisions in a deal to resolve Purdue bankruptcy’s that would protect the family from current and future civil lawsuits over the US opioid crisis.

Under the draft agreement, which was published by a court-appointed mediator on Thursday, the family members issued a statement of regret over the role that OxyContin — a highly addictive painkiller made by Purdue — played in fuelling an opioid crisis that has killed more than 500,000 Americans.

The Sackler family members have also agreed to a clause that allows any US institutions or organisations to remove their names from buildings, scholarships or endowments that they have sponsored, accelerating a process that has already begun amid public outrage over the opioid crisis’s death toll.

The revised settlement would still grant the Sackler family protection from all current and future civil liability claims that could threaten their remaining fortunes. They would not be protected from criminal prosecution, although there is no indication that any charges are pending.

In December an US federal court judge threw out a previous settlement worth at least $4.5bn following a legal appeal by a group of eight US states and the US attorney for the southern district of New York. The states argued the Sackler family owners were benefiting from the liability releases without having personally filed for Chapter 11 protection themselves.

Lawyers for Purdue warned that without such a settlement, years of litigation would delay payments to victims and shrink the available pot.

The objectors pointed to analysis presented in the bankruptcy court that showed the Sackler family members had taken more than $10bn out of Perdue between 2008 and 2017. As a requirement for the Sacklers’ contribution to the original agreement, the family members had demanded that they could no longer be pursued for liability.

The new agreement must be approved by Judge Robert Drain, who is overseeing the Purdue bankruptcy.

Carl Tobias, professor of law at University of Richmond, said the settlement could mark the end of the long-running Purdue Pharma bankruptcy. But this would depend on approval by Judge Drain and whether the US bankruptcy trustee, and the Department of Justice, which helped persuade the US federal court to throw out original bankruptcy deal, are satisfied, he said.

In compliance with the new settlement the families of the late Dr Mortimer Sackler and the late Dr Raymond Sackler issued a statement on Thursday, expressing regret for the role that OxyContin played in the opioid crisis. The statement reiterated they did not break any laws and emphasised that it was not an admission of wrongdoing.

“The families have consistently affirmed that settlement is by far the best way to help solve a serious and complex public health crisis. While the families have acted lawfully in all respects, they sincerely regret that OxyContin, a prescription medicine that continues to help people suffering from chronic pain, unexpectedly became part of an opioid crisis that has brought grief and loss to far too many families and communities,” the statement read.

The mediator recommended the bankruptcy court hold a virtual hearing to allow victims of the opioid crisis to tell their personal stories. At least one member from the two sides of the Sackler family who own Purdue should attend, the mediator said.

Source: Financial Times

Sacklers and Purdue Pharma Reach New Deal With States Over Opioids
March 3, 2022


The new settlement, however, still faces two potential hurdles. Even if Judge Drain, the bankruptcy judge, signs off, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has to approve the plan, which would formally reverse the December ruling that rejected the earlier plan.

A key component of the deal — the immunity shield for the Sacklers from civil suits — is being contested by the U.S. Trustee program, which serves as a watchdog over the bankruptcy system. The Justice Department did not return a request for comment on whether it would continue to pursue that case.

Under the agreement, Purdue will be renamed Knoa Pharma and overseen by a public board. The restructured company will contribute $1.5 billion through 2024 to funds for the plaintiffs’ programs, plus more as the company evolves into a manufacturer of medications for addiction reversal and treatment, among other drugs, including OxyContin.

The Sacklers’ shield against lawsuits was the major sticking point for states that fought the plan. The District of Columbia and nine states — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — had voted against the earlier proposal, contending they should have the right to pursue the Sacklers under state civil laws.

The earlier deal, which included a $225 million federal settlement, had less money but it was to be paid out over roughly nine years. The Sacklers now have 18 years to pay the additional $1 billion, according to the revised plan.

As marathon sessions of negotiations dragged on, the opioid crisis continued to deepen, with overdoses soaring during the pandemic. The dilemma for the holdout governments was whether to keep pursuing the Sacklers in court, a process that could take years with no guarantee of victory, or just take the money, now that the cash offer had increased.

While all the states and, in turn, their local governments, will get a bigger payout than the original deal outlined, the holdout states will get even more, as a bonus for their resistance. The $750 million set aside to compensate more than 100,000 individual victims and survivors and whose stories help build the governmental lawsuits will not grow, but states have committed to funding an “opioid survivors trust” specifically for them.

Source: NY Times

Purdue Pharma agrees to new settlement with states to resolve opioid lawsuits


As part of the settlement deal, the Sackler family must give up control of Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue -- which will be turned into a different company that will fight opioid abuse. File Photo by Justin Lane/EPA-EFE

March 3 (UPI) -- The Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma agreed to a new settlement on Thursday to resolve lawsuits in almost every state over their connection to the opioid crisis.

The family agreed to a new bankruptcy plan with states that had been holding out on an earlier agreement. The new bankruptcy settlement will free billions of dollars for opioid addiction treatment nationwide.

Under the settlement, the Sackler family will pay as much as $6 billion -- and the deal could be worth around $10 billion over time. The Sacklers said earlier this week that they were close to increasing the total amount of the settlement to get the remaining states to sign on.

The settlement was filed in federal bankruptcy court in New York state. It still must be approved by judge Robert Drain to make it final.

The proposal would end all claims against the Sackler family now and in the future over Purdue's role in the opioid crisis. Purdue introduced OxyContin in 1995 and the painkiller has been at the center of opioid abuse in the United States virtually ever since.

As part of the deal, the family also must give up control of the Stamford, Conn.-based pharma company -- which will be turned into a different company that will fight opioid abuse.

"This settlement is both significant and insufficient -- constrained by the inadequacies of our federal bankruptcy code," Connecticut Attorney General William Tong told The New York Times. "But Connecticut cannot stall this process indefinitely as victims and our sister states await a resolution.

"This settlement resolves our claims against Purdue and the Sacklers, but we are not done fighting for justice against the addiction industry and against our broken bankruptcy code."

Connecticut, California, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia, which had declined to sign on to an earlier agreement, approved the new proposal. The other states accepted a previous settlement last year, but the deal was ultimately rejected by a bankruptcy judge.

While Purdue Pharma has pleaded guilty to criminal charges -- for misleading marketing and minimizing OxyContin's addiction risk -- the Sacklers have never taken responsibility for playing any part of the opioid crisis and they have never been charged with an offense.

Last month, hundreds of Native American tribes agreed to a settlement with opioid producers worth almost $600 million.

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