For decades, the main activity of the Sackler clan (consisting of almost 40 members, all rich to a fault) consisted of traveling, working in the family pharmaceutical company and regularly donating enormous sums of money to museums, galleries, universities and study centers. Perhaps that is why many compare them with other large donors and have even baptized them as “the Medici of the 20th century.”
However, for a few weeks now and thanks to the Netflix series in which the adventures of this family are portrayed, their name has become a trend again. And for the worst of reasons since Painkiller – the name of the series – tells how the family became rich at the expense of addicting millions of Americans. In fact, it is said that in just two decades one of the firm’s most successful medications, the painkiller OxyContin, would have ended the lives of 500,000 people.
But how did it all happen? How did your pharmaceutical company – called Purdue Pharma – manage to introduce millions of people to the consumption of a tremendously addictive opioid? Furthermore, how did they manage to avoid the gaze of the control agencies for so many years? This is, to a large extent, what is told in the series and also what explains his vocation for art and million-dollar donations. According to the investigation carried out by North American justice, the Sacklers would have used their donations and their facade as patrons to “launder” the true origin of their wealth: a medication as effective as it was addictive that ended in one of the biggest health crises in the world. the United States.
A complicated picture
Going to the origin of the dynasty we find three Sackler brothers – Arthur, Raymond and Mortimer, the three doctors, the three psychiatrists – who at the beginning of the last century began to manufacture different medicines. With the growth of the firm, in 1950 they ended up expanding the business, in 1980 they began to manufacture painkillers and it was in 1995 when they launched what would be their greatest success: an analgesic (or “painkiller”, “kills pain”, as it is known). it calls them in the USA) which was an immediate event. In large part, because the Sacklers relied on a more than aggressive advertising campaign (which included trips, gifts and financial benefits) to convince doctors to prescribe OxyContin.
The campaign worked, and so well, that over decades each member of the Sackler family pocketed tens of thousands of dollars. This is how his name became halls and spaces of museums (such as the MET and the Louvre), scholarships, galleries and much more. Until, in 2017, the secret ended up exploding into the air. It was then that, at the end of the year, none other than President Donald Trump spoke of a true “health crisis” of national scope behind which the famous drug was.
Trial and repudiation
Since then, and even before, motorized marches and protests by relatives and victims of Oxycontin began to be replicated throughout the country. There were thousands of families denouncing the devastating effects of the drug on their children, and in many cases also the death of these patients who had only followed their doctors’ instructions, without even suspecting that they were ingesting substances as dangerous as heroin and as addictive like this.
Then, the lawsuits began to pour in. Literally: more than 500 towns in the United States, as well as two states (Oklahoma and New York) sued the Sackler company, which declared bankruptcy in 2019. At that time, the family attempted to evade their responsibilities through a $6 billion settlement to compensate the victims. In August of this year, that request was rejected by the court.
Today, the surname Sackler remains a dirty word in all those circles in which it once shined. The name was removed from several exhibition venues (sometimes due to pressure from the employees of those institutions) and spaces such as the Tate Gallery in London directly refuse to continue receiving funds from a family that went from glory to decline almost with the same speed with which so many people became addicted to the worst of their drugs.
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