FILE — Kathleen Scarpone, left, of Kingston, N.H., and Cheryl Juaire, second from left, of Marlborough, Mass., protest in front of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, at Harvard University, April 12, 2019, in Cambridge, Mass. Scarpone, who lost her son to OxyContin addiction, addressed three Sackler family members during a virtual U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing, Thursday, March 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Releasing years of anguish and anger, victims of opioid abuse and those who have lost loved ones to a deadly addiction crisis stretching back more than two decades unloaded their emotions Thursday on members of the family they blame for fueling it.
The unusual hearing, conducted virtually in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, gave victims and survivors what they have wanted for years: the chance to confront members of the Sackler family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and tell them about the lasting pain that addiction and overdoses have had in their lives.
“When you created OxyContin, you created so much loss for so many people. … I’m outraged that you haven’t owned up to the crisis that you’ve created,” said Kay Scarpone, addressing the three Sackler family members in attendance. She lost her son Joseph Scarpone, a former Marine, to addiction a month before his 26th birthday.
Appearing only via audio was Richard Sackler, the former Purdue president and board chair who has said the company and family bear no responsibility for the opioid crisis; he is a son of Raymond Sackler, one of the three brothers who in the 1950s bought the company that became Purdue Pharma. Attending on video were Theresa Sackler, wife of the late Mortimer D. Sackler, another of the brothers; and David Sackler, Richard Sackler’s son.
Theresa’s and David’s expressions remained largely neutral as people spoke on video about the pain of losing children after years of trying to get them adequate treatment, about their own journeys through addiction, and about caring for babies born into withdrawal and screaming in pain.
Janette Adams told of her late husband, Dr. Thomas Adams, who was a physician and church deacon in Mississippi and a missionary in Africa and Haiti. He became addicted to opioids after pharmaceutical representatives pitched them, she said. After a terrible decline, he died in 2015.
“I’m angry, I’m pissed, but I move on,” Adams said. “Because our society lost a person who could have made so many more contributions. … You took so much from us, but we plan to, through our faith in God, move forward.”
Jenny Scully, a nurse in New York, gave birth in 2014 while on OxyContin and other opioids prescribed years earlier when she was dealing with both breast cancer and injuries from an accident. She was told her baby would be healthy, Scully said, but the little girl has had a lifetime of physical, developmental and emotional difficulties.
“You have destroyed so many lives,′ she said, pulling her daughter into view. ”Take a good look at this beautiful little girl your robbed of the person she could have been.”
The forum is an unconventional hearing for the White Plains, New York, courtroom of Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain, who on Wednesday gave tentative approval to key elements of a plan to settle thousands of lawsuits against the company.
“The nature of today’s proceedings are unique and important,” Drain said to open the hearing. “The past and ongoing impact of OxyContin on individual people has always been of critical importance in this case.”
Drain said the Sacklers and others would not be given a chance to respond to the statements from the group of victims, selected by lawyers for creditors in the case. Some of the victims addressed the Sacklers from a law office in New York; others were at their homes.
The hearing may be the closest thing to a trial for Sackler family members, who victims say helped spark and prolong the epidemic through the marketing of their signature painkiller, OxyContin. It’s a crisis that has grown deadlier in recent years, driven largely by deaths from illicit forms of the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl.
It’s not the first time for family members to appear in public venues dedicated to Purdue’s role in the opioid crisis. Two testified before a congressional subcommittee in 2020, and some were part of a virtual Purdue bankruptcy hearing last year.
Sackler family members have expressed regret for the crisis but have never offered an unequivocal apology.
Last week, they released a statement saying in part, “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 settlement agreement is estimated to be worth at least $10 billion over time. It calls for members of the Sackler family to contribute $5.5 billion to $6 billion over 17 years to fight the opioid crisis. That’s an increase of more than $1 billion over a previous version that was rejected by another judge on appeal. Most of the money would be used for efforts to combat the crisis, but $750 million would go directly to victims or their survivors.
The overall settlement, which still requires actions by multiple courts to take effect, provides more than $150 million for Native American tribes and over $100 million for medical monitoring and payments for children born in withdrawal from opioids.
The plan also calls for family members to give up ownership of the company so it could become a new entity with its profits dedicated to stemming the epidemic. In exchange, Sackler family members would get protection from civil lawsuits over opioids.
The family also agreed not to oppose any efforts to remove the Sackler name from cultural and educational institutions they have supported and to make public a larger cache of company documents.
Purdue Pharma starting selling OxyContin, a pioneering extended-release prescription painkiller, in 1996. At the same time, Purdue and other drug companies funded efforts to get doctors and other prescribers to think differently about opioids — suggesting they be used for some pain conditions for which the potent drugs were previously considered off limits.
Over the decades, there were waves of fatal overdoses — first associated with prescription drugs and then, as prescriptions became harder to obtain and some drugs became harder to manipulate for a quick high, from heroin. More recently, fentanyl and similar drugs have become the biggest killer.
Purdue has twice pleaded guilty to criminal charges, but no members of the Sackler family have been charged with crimes. There are no indications that any such charges are forthcoming, although seven U.S. senators last month asked the Department of Justice to consider charges.
Other drugmakers, distributors, marketers and pharmacies involved in the opioid industry have faced similar lawsuits from state and local governments, Native American tribes and other entities.
Last month, drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and wholesalers AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson announced they were finalizing settlements worth a combined $26 billion. As in the proposed Purdue settlement, most of that money is required to be used to fight the crisis.
Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
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