EMPIRE OF PAIN THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE SACKLER DYNASTY by Patrick Radden Keefe review by Carol Strametz
“ A padding between you and the world .” Quoting Nan Goldin , a prominent photographer and activist , the author of Empire of Pain neatly conveys the addictive nature of the controversial drug Oxycontin . For me , it also reverberated the feeling expressed in The Copenhagen
Trilogy , in which , after a shot of Demerol , the protagonist asks , “ Can I have that every night ?”
We were a small but enthusiastic group that read through the 560 pages of Empire of Pain over the holidays . It is a masterfully told story of the Sackler family and its connection to the opioid epidemic in the United States . The Sackler-owned Purdue Pharma developed and patented Oxycontin , a drug twice as powerful as morphine but without its stigma . The company marketed it for anyone who suffered from pain and claimed that the slow-release formulation was less addictive than existing opiates — a claim never tested , despite the drugs approval by the Food and Drug Administration in 1996 . Since then , more than 500,000 Americans have died from opioid-related overdoses . What began in the late 1990s as an epidemic of prescription pain-pill abuse has evolved into a worse one .
Patrick Radden Keefe ’ s Empire of Pain is a work of nonfiction that reads like a novel . Keefe begins his story with Arthur Sackler , the eldest of three brothers . Arthur was a genius , intertwining his work as a psychiatrist , owner of a medical advertising agency , and as a prominent medical publisher . Aggressively marketing the tranquilizer Valium directly to physicians with misleading and false information , Arthur made a fortune in the ‘ 70s . He kept the source of his money quiet , but made sure his large philanthropic donations were recognized with his name emblazoned on the entrances to art galleries , museum walls , and medical school buildings .
Keefe is unforgiving in blaming Arthur Sackler for the opioid crisis , although Arthur died almost a decade before Purdue Pharma , owned by his two brothers , began selling Oxycontin . Arthur clearly was a pioneer of modern drug marketing , blurring the lines between medicine and business . But would he have been so aggressive in pushing a drug that was clearly spearheading an opioid crisis ? His nephew , Richard Sackler , who was president of Purdue Pharma from 1999 to 2003 , clearly found this permissible , making an even bigger fortune for the families of Arthur ’ s brothers , Mortimer and Raymond . The author uses confiscated company emails and memos coupled with personal interviews to paint a picture of the ruthless family and its coercive strategy to keep the money flowing and the lawsuits at bay . It is a gripping tale of capitalism gone wrong , an addicting read in which facts are peppered with personal dramas .
There are many “ checks and balances ” built into the US system to protect the consumer ( or patient .) How and when did these regulations break down ? Although efforts to stop the flood of Oxycontin into communities are fleetingly mentioned in Empire of Pain , I found that American
Cartel by Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz more clearly outlines what went wrong ,
CURRENTS 45