'You Murdered My Daughter': Relatives of OxyContin Victims Confront the Sacklers

[Demovictory9]

‘You Murdered My Daughter’: Relatives of OxyContin Victims Confront the Sacklers
It was the first time, after years of lawsuits, that the family that owns Purdue Pharma heard directly from families who had lost loved ones to addiction.



“You murdered my daughter and destroyed my family,” said Donna Mazurek, whose daughter, Paige, was prescribed Purdue Pharma’s opioid painkiller OxyContin after a root canal, became addicted, spiraled into heroin and overdosed when she was 22.

Ms. Mazurek, from Michigan, spoke at an extraordinary Zoom session in a federal bankruptcy courtroom in White Plains, N.Y., on Thursday. Her voice quaked as she addressed three members of the billionaire Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma — two expressionless people visible on the video screen and one unseen, Dr. Richard Sackler, a former Purdue president who was watching with his camera off.

The hearing, conducted by Judge Robert Drain, who is overseeing Purdue’s bankruptcy, featured 26 people from 19 states. It was a long-sought, galvanizing release of pain, rage and grief, a session the Sackler family agreed to last week, as part of the still-evolving terms of efforts to settle thousands of lawsuits against them and their company. After years of litigation and prolonged settlement talks between state and local governments and the Sacklers and Purdue, Thursday’s session was the first time individuals had been allowed to directly address the Sacklers.

“This is a day like no other in the history of American jurisprudence,” Anne Andrews, a lawyer on a committee for 70,000 relatives and those in recovery, said just before the start of the hearing. “The Sacklers have to listen to the direct victims of their crimes, the stories of people who have died, who lost the potential of their lives. But for years the Sacklers painted them in their emails as slime, addicts, as low lifes, and that it was their fault they were addicted. But they are America. They are you and me.”


Tiffinee Scott of Maryland, who lost her daugher, Tiarra Renee Brown-Lewis, to addiction after she was prescribed OxyContin for pain associated with her sickle cell disease.Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

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Lyn Wencus lost her son, Jeff Wencus, to addiction when he was 33. The tattoo she got in his memory reads, “Your wings were ready, my heart was not.”Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/health/sacklers-opioids-victims.html

[DanieRains]

1. Prison

For these billionaires.

[leftieNanner]

2. Read Empire of Pain

If you want to be fully outraged about the Sackler family.

They are monsters.

[cinematicdiversions]

3. Sorry but there is nothing wrong with taking a narcotic like Oxycotin for a root canal.

Most people do not become addicts after taking pain meds.

this is the kind of hysteria that prevents people in pain from getting the pain relief that they need.

I feel bad for the people that become addicted to any substance but too often it is used to curtail the rights of adults in America (See Prohibition)

[Hekate]

4. You really do not know, do you? You need to research what the Sacklers did to cause this crisis...

I remember when the drug was first marketed: it was supposed to be virtually NON-ADDICTIVE. VERY LOW probability of addiction. It was heavily marketed to doctors as safe and reliable and was prescribed for high school football injuries, minor surgeries, all kinds of things. When families are interviewed it is common to hear: “By the end of week 2, my son/daughter/husband/wife was hooked. They were prescribed more. And more. Until the prescriptions stopped.”

Please educate yourself. When they call it an epidemic it is because so many people who once were healthy and straight just OD’d and died. The toll has been phenomenal.

Purdue Pharma KNEW. The Sacklers KNEW. They were pushers not seen on such a scale since the Opium Wars, if even then.

[dflprincess]

5. Watch "Dopesick"

The Sacklers knew how dangerous the drug is and marketed as safe.

And I've had root canals, I've never needed nor been given an opiate for one.

[Demovictory9]

7. or this video

[Solomon]

13. Yes watch Dopesick. Blew my mind. Richard Sackler is a beast.

[Demovictory9]

6. there is a great "American Greed" episode that illustrates the problem. doctors were basing their

practice on the drug... trolling for people to prescribe Oxy to. it was a total racket.

[MFM008]

11. i agree with this

Ive take Oxy a number of times, usually post surgically but also for sciatica,
It was the only thing that worked. I always took it exactly as prescribed, no more no less.
I never became addicted and looked toward the drug to take away the pain only, to me
it felt like glorified tylenol. Never got high, never wanted more and Im overweight so i
believe i have an addictive personality at least to food.
It got me through the severe pain of sciatica
The pain of a broken in 3 places foot, 2 full knee replacements, 13 other surgeries....
I was grateful for it ( and fentanyl post surgically as well as morphine).
I dont know why some people become addicted if they take it as directed.
I dont get it.

[Buckeyeblue]

12. Some of it comes down to lazy doctors

Who only wanted to treat the pain not the underlying issue. I watched more than my share of middle aged, mostly obese women with back issues, become legal junkies. They knew they were addicted and their doctors knew, but it was the path of least resistance.

I think doctors write off obese patients who have pain issues and are seemingly unwilling to try to reduce their weight.

[Act_of_Reparation]

15. Been gathering a lot of data, have you?

What's your sample size?

[Buckeyeblue]

16. Of course it's purely anecdotal but I've seen that scenario with multiple family and friends

And of course I chat with people who have similar stories. It seemed like 10 years ago prescriptions for pain killers were handed out like candy. I don't believe the doctors are victims here. I think it was easy, lazy medicine. That's what the patient and doctors both wanted.

[yardwork]

14. You're dangerously uninformed about what happened here.

A reasonable prescription for a narcotic after a root canal might be one or two doses. The pharmaceutical companies told providers that the routine dose was thirty pills! They also lied and said that studies showed that OxyContin was not addictive - when they knew it was more addictive than heroin.

No hysterics. The truth.

[ck4829]

8. ...

[captain queeg]

9. I remember medical people back then saying your body reacts different to narcotics when you are in

pain, the implication being you’d only develop a problem if you were taking it recreationally. Not everyone, but I heard it a few times from different sources. And they were getting that idea from their pharmacy supplier. So I think there was an effort to minimize the risks and I haven’t read the books or seen the movies, just excerpts. I have no doubt it was pushed at the corporate level.

But I hope we don’t over react where it will be hard to get pain medicine when you need it.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

10. Imho

The sackler family members
who are directly responsible in peddling the opioids and knew it was killing people should get the death penalty,for all the terrible deaths and ruined families they caused.

I know people will disagree,

But in my world that would be justice.

Too often we let the biggest monsters live another day. So why be surprised these sociopaths do it again and again ? Especially the billionaire sociopaths they will insulate themselves from accountability with money and connections.

And emerge again to hurt people under another "brand".