Family behind OxyContin is unapologetic

Two owners of the company that makes OxyContin acknowledged to a congressional committee Thursday that the powerful prescription painkiller has played a role in the national opioid crisis but stopped short of apologizing or admitting wrongdoing.

“I want to express my family’s deep sadness about the opioid crisis ,” David Sackler, a member of the family that owns Purdue Pharma, said during a rare public appearance. “OxyContin is a medicine that Purdue intended to help people, and it has helped, and continues to help, millions of Americans.”

The company’s marketing efforts have been blamed for contributing to an opioid addiction and overdose crisis that has been linked to 470,000 deaths in the U.S. over the past two decades.

Kathe Sackler, David Sackler’s cousin, told the House Oversight Committee that she knows “the loss of any family member or loved oneis terribly painful andnothingis more tragic than the loss of a child.”

Asked about her role, she said she’d done soul-searching. “I have tried to figure out if there’ s anything I could have done differently knowing what I knew then, not what I know now,” she said. “There is nothing I can find that I would have done differently.”

Rep. Kelly Armstrong, a North Dakota Republican, noted that OxyContin sales revenue increased even after the company pleaded guilty to crimes for improper marketing of the drug .“You want to ask what you could have done differently?” he asked. “Look at your owndamnbalance sheet.”

The two Sacklers, descendants of two of the three brothers who bought Purdue nearly 70 years ago, appeared before the committee in a video hearing held amidcoronavirus restrictions.

They took the step after the committee’s chairwoman, Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, threatened to issue subpoenas. Purdue CEO Craig Landau testified, saying the company accepts “full responsibility.”

They agreed to provide information about shell companies that hold family moneyand to make public documents.