‘You should be ashamed of yourselves’
Members of Congress confront Sacklers, Purdue Pharma CEO
STAMFORD — Two owners and the chief executive of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma faced a scathing Congressional hearing Thursday, as their testimony failed to sway lawmakers who called for criminal prosecution of the firm’s “evil” leaders.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform convened the online meeting as part of its investigation into the role Stamford-based Purdue and its Sackler family owners allegedly played in fueling the national opioid epidemic. The acrimonious hearing was Purdue’s and
the Sacklers’ most public grilling to date. The company pleaded guilty last month to three criminal charges and is still dealing through bankruptcy with several thousand lawsuits accusing it of deceptively marketing
OxyContin.
“People struggling with addiction are not criminals. Your family and Purdue Pharma — you are the criminals,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Massachusetts. “You are the ones who disregarded your duties to society, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
‘Sadness’ about crisis
From the hearing’s outset, committee members assailed the company and depicted the Sacklers as key culprits in a crisis in which nearly 450,000 people have died from opioid overdoses since 1999. The hearing included prerecorded video statements from several witnesses whose children had died after taking OxyContin or had survived addiction to the drug.
“Most despicably, Purdue and the Sacklers worked to deflect the blame for all that suffering away from themselves and onto the people suffering with OxyContin addiction,” said Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, chairwoman of the committee.
Contention had already marked the lead-up to the hearing, one of the rare occasions in which any company executives or owners testified publicly. Committee members had threatened subpoenas after they said four of the Sackler owners of Purdue had declined invitations to testify. In the end, co-owners David and Kathe Sackler and Purdue CEO and President Craig Landau appeared of their own volition.
“I want to express my family’s deep sadness about the opioid crisis,” David Sackler, a grandson of one of Purdue’s late founders and a board member from 2012 to 2018, said in his opening statement. “There are many lawsuits that have blamed Purdue and my family for the opioid crisis. While we deny liability and are vigorously contesting these claims, we want to respond to the opioid crisis because a prescription medicine that our company manufactured
and sold, which was never intended to harm anyone, ended up being a part of a crisis that has harmed too many people.”
Kathe Sackler, a daughter of one of Purdue’s late founders and who served on the company’s board from 1990 to 2018, made similar comments.
“I know the loss of any family member or loved one is terribly painful, and nothing is more tragic than the loss of a child,” she said. “As a mother, my heart breaks for those parents who have lost their children. It distresses me greatly and angers me greatly that the medication that was developed to help people and relieve severe pain has become associated with so much human suffering.”
In his opening statement, Landau said he wanted to speak to everyone affected by the opioid epidemic. He said the company was “charting a new course” under his leadership. Major changes since he took over in June 2017 have included the end of opioid marketing and the disbanding of the company’s sales force, he said.
“On behalf of Purdue, as its current leader, I’m profoundly sorry,” Landau said. “In trying to strike a careful balance between supporting physicians who treat patients with pain and mitigating the serious risks associated with the opioid medications, Purdue fell short. The company accepts full responsibility for its wrongdoing. And as Purdue’s leader, I’m determined to lead all of our efforts to address the opioid crisis as quickly and effectively as I can.”
But even after being repeatedly pressed by committee members, none of the three admitted to personal wrongdoing.
“I have tried to figure out is there anything that I could have done differently knowing what I knew then,” Kathe Sackler said. “I have to say there is nothing that I can find that I would have done differently based on what I believed and understood then, and what I learned from management and reports to the board and what I learned from my colleagues on the board.”
The answers incensed committee members on both sides of the aisle.
“Watching you testify makes my blood boil,” Rep. Jim Cooper, R-Tennessee, said later in the hearing. “I‘m not sure that I’m aware of any family in America that’s more evil than yours.”
Calls for stronger prosecution
Throughout the hearing, committee members also vented about the company’s and the Sacklers’ recently agreed-upon settlements with the U.S. Department of Justice.
As part of Purdue’s approximately $8 billion settlement, the company pleaded guilty to defrauding the government and violating anti-kickback laws.
At the same time, the Sacklers agreed to a $225 million settlement to resolve allegations of marketing misconduct. The Sacklers did not admit any wrongdoing.
None of the Sacklers or any current or former Purdue executives have faced criminal charges related to those settlements, a lack of prosecution that has been condemned by many Congressional members.
“The blame for Purdue’s dangerous sales tactics rests squarely with the Sackler family,” said Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan. “If someone, Mr. Sackler, in my district was caught flooding my district with opioids, we know damn well that they would be tried and locked up. They would be thrown into jail. … You’re using our bankruptcy process and everything to walk free.”
Committee members also assailed the Sacklers in response to committee findings and bankruptcy court records showing that from 2008 through 2017 withdrawals worth more than $10 billion were made from the company that benefited the Sacklers.
“They took the 2007 settlement (also with the Justice Department) as a signal that they should withdraw even more money from Purdue, hoping to get as much money out as possible, as quickly as possible — all so that they could prevent the money from going to the victims and sufferers from the opioid crisis,” Maloney said.
Later in the hearing, Maloney said the Sacklers had “taken money out of the company so it would be forever beyond the legal reach of the people they were harming.
They are the Bernie Madoffs of medicine.”
Representatives for the Sacklers have said that more than half of those transfers were paid in taxes and would be reinvested in businesses that would be sold as part of Purdue’s proposed settlement of the lawsuits.
In addition, several committee members pilloried the company’s bankruptcy process. The firm has offered to settle the lawsuits with a proposal it values at more than $10 billion. It would have the Sacklers relinquish control and restructure Purdue into a “public benefit company.” Twenty-four states including Connecticut have rejected that plan.
“I’m just sick to see, what appears to me, is a family and company that’s going to use the bankruptcy process to get out of this and continue to be one of the wealthiest companies in America,” said Rep. James Comer, RKentucky, the committee’s ranking member. “It’s unacceptable. I’m just sickened the more I read about the actions of Purdue Pharma.”
At the end of the hearing, Maloney indicated that the committee would continue to investigate the company and the Sacklers. The subsequent measures, she said, would include the witnesses providing a “full accounting of shell companies owned by the Sackler family” and the public disclosure of “all documents in the Sackler family’s possession.”
“The committee will not allow you to continue hiding from your part in this devastation. You have played a critical and active role in sparking and fueling the opioid epidemic,” Maloney said in her closing comments. “You have the ability now to mitigate at least some of the damage you caused. … Make a massive financial contribution that leaves no doubt about your commitment. And finally, acknowledge your wrongdoing. The families and communities whose lives have been ruined deserve at least that much.”