Call number
BIO SAC
Collection
Publication
Doubleday (2021), Edition: First Edition, 560 pages
Description
Presents a portrait of three generations of the Sackler family (Arthur, Raymond, and Mortimer), who built their fortune on the sale of Valium and later sponsored the creation and marketing of one of the most commonly prescribed and addictive painkillers of the opioid crisis, OxyContin.
Media reviews
Put simply, this book will make your blood boil ... The broad contours of this story are well known...But what would normally be a weakness becomes a strength because Keefe is blessed with great timing. In the past few years, numerous lawsuits filed against Purdue by state attorneys general, cities
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and counties have finally cracked open the Sacklers’ dome of secrecy....While other accounts of the opioid crisis have tended to focus on the victims, Empire of Pain stays tightly focused on the perpetrators....the trove of documents that has since come to light through the multidistrict litigation, which Keefe weaves into a highly readable and disturbing narrative, shatters any illusion that the Sacklers were in the dark about what was going on at the company. Show Less
This story is much bigger than the Sacklers indeed. Without government regulators all too willing to cave to corporate interests, or an industry norm of putting profits ahead of patient health and safety, the Sacklers never would have gotten this far....Keefe’s book is ultimately an important
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record of private greed facilitated by a corrupted government. The book’s conclusion is somewhat open-ended.... But one thing that’s certain after reading Keefe’s book is that between an ever-growing death toll from overdose deaths and a generation of pain patients left to fend for themselves, much more than lawsuits and money is needed to get America out of this painful nightmare. Show Less
Empire of Pain, Keefe explains in his afterword, is a dynastic saga. Like Purdue, it is all about the Sackler family: how it transformed American medicine, the key role it played in the opioid crisis that now costs tens of thousands of Americans their lives every year, and the family’s belated
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and incomplete downfall.... Keefe has a knack for crafting lucid, readable descriptions of the sort of arcane business arrangements the Sacklers favored. He is also indefatigable. Show Less
Keefe nimbly guides us through the thicket of family intrigues and betrayals ... Even when detailing the most sordid episodes, Keefe’s narrative voice is calm and admirably restrained, allowing his prodigious reporting to speak for itself. His portrait of the family is all the more damning for
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its stark lucidity. Amid all the venality and hypocrisy, one of the terrible ironies that emerges from Empire of Pain is how the Sacklers would privately rage about the poor impulse control of 'abusers' while remaining blind to their own. Show Less
Richly researched account of the Sackler pharmaceutical dynasty, agents of the opioid-addiction epidemic that plagues us today.... A definitive, damning, urgent tale of overweening avarice at tremendous cost to society.
In his impressive exposé, “Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty,” the journalist Patrick Radden Keefe lays the blame directly at the feet of one elite family, the billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma. The decisions that birthed and perpetuated the epidemic were not made by
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employees or a management team, he reveals, but by members of this cultured clan of physicians, long acclaimed for their arts philanthropy. Show Less
History repeats itself and disaster ensues in this sweeping saga of the rise and fall of the family behind OxyContin, the painkiller widely credited with sparking the opioid epidemic in America.... It's an altogether damning portrait ("Unlike a lot of human beings," Keefe writes, "[the Sacklers]
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didn't seem to learn from what they saw transpiring in the world around them"), richly detailed and vividly written. Readers will be outraged and enthralled in equal measure. Show Less
It's equal parts juicy society gossip (the Sackler name has been plastered across museums and foundations in New York and London, they attend society events with the likes of Michael Bloomberg) and historical record of how they built their dynasty and eventually pushed Oxy onto the market. It's not
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likely to flip-flop anyone's opinion over who is to blame for the addiction epidemic: If you've made it this far with your belief of the Sacklers' innocence intact, there's likely nothing that can be said to sway you. But for the rest of the reading public, it lives out every promise inherent in the word exposé Show Less
In Empire of Pain, Keefe marshals a large pile of evidence and deploys it with prosecutorial precision ... How Purdue came to be...is one of many contorted tales of family conflict that can occasionally be difficult to follow. But Keefe is a gifted storyteller who excels at capturing personalities,
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which is no small thing given that the Sacklers didn’t provide access ... During the bankruptcy hearings, several family members of the deceased tried to speak, apparently hoping for closure. Among them was a woman who lost her brother ... She didn’t get to make her speech. The judge said it was inappropriate for the forum. But the story lives on in Keefe’s book—juxtaposed, as it should be, with that of the Sacklers. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member japaul22
[Empire of Pain] is fast-paced, compelling nonfiction that will turn your stomach at the greed it presents. Keefe has combed through thousands of documents to put together the story of the Sackler family. The Sacklers are well-known as philanthropists to the arts, museums, and higher education. But
The Sacklers are in the pharmaceutical business and are the producers of Oxycontin, the opioid that has cause so many addiction problems in our country. What is really horrifying about this account is that it points out all of the information that the company had early on about the addictive properties of Oxycontin and that Purdue Pharma blatantly ignored, covered up, or outright lied about. And they bought the FDA to go along with them. The lack of FDA oversight in marketing this kind of drug was absolutely shocking to me and the opportunities for corruption in this case and in the marketing of any medication was deeply disturbing. The Sacklers also knew exactly where to market their addictive drug to get the highest sales, knew which doctors were overprescribing and kept supplying them, knew the pharmacies that were giving out more oxycontin pills per day than the local population could possible ingest, and yet they kept selling.
Keefe gives a complete picture of the Sacklers, starting with the 3 brothers growing up in an immigrant family, succeeding in the medical field, and melding ambitious marketing skills with their medical degrees by getting into pharmaceuticals. The first round of money they made was largely based on valium (hm, another addictive pain killer). The second generation was the one that came up with Oxycontin. Some readers may be a little bored by the detailed family history presented in the first section, but I liked the background.
I think this is an important book for all Americans to read. It's pretty eye opening to see how the system for making and marketing medication works and how deeply flawed it is. Highly recommended.
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the way they made their money has made many of these institutions begin to turn away their donations and rename their buildings. The Sacklers are in the pharmaceutical business and are the producers of Oxycontin, the opioid that has cause so many addiction problems in our country. What is really horrifying about this account is that it points out all of the information that the company had early on about the addictive properties of Oxycontin and that Purdue Pharma blatantly ignored, covered up, or outright lied about. And they bought the FDA to go along with them. The lack of FDA oversight in marketing this kind of drug was absolutely shocking to me and the opportunities for corruption in this case and in the marketing of any medication was deeply disturbing. The Sacklers also knew exactly where to market their addictive drug to get the highest sales, knew which doctors were overprescribing and kept supplying them, knew the pharmacies that were giving out more oxycontin pills per day than the local population could possible ingest, and yet they kept selling.
Keefe gives a complete picture of the Sacklers, starting with the 3 brothers growing up in an immigrant family, succeeding in the medical field, and melding ambitious marketing skills with their medical degrees by getting into pharmaceuticals. The first round of money they made was largely based on valium (hm, another addictive pain killer). The second generation was the one that came up with Oxycontin. Some readers may be a little bored by the detailed family history presented in the first section, but I liked the background.
I think this is an important book for all Americans to read. It's pretty eye opening to see how the system for making and marketing medication works and how deeply flawed it is. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member detailmuse
An excellent biography of New York’s Sackler family that is behind PurduePharma’s OxyContin, “the taproot of one of the most deadly public health crises in modern history.” Behind is a key word here, as the family concealed its involvement in predatory business/marketing strategies (first
The best book I’ve encountered so far about the opioid epidemic is DREAMLAND by Sam Quinones (revelatory about the myriad contributing causes). But I’m eager to read more by this writer -- I’ve been looking for a book about The Troubles, and am happy to see that he’s written a highly rated one.
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with Librium and Valium, then morphine and oxycodone), while basking in the limelight of global cultural philanthropy. Lots of bad-actor enablers here too, including healthcare providers and regulators.The best book I’ve encountered so far about the opioid epidemic is DREAMLAND by Sam Quinones (revelatory about the myriad contributing causes). But I’m eager to read more by this writer -- I’ve been looking for a book about The Troubles, and am happy to see that he’s written a highly rated one.
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LibraryThing member threadnsong
This is a remarkable book for its scope and its readability about a very dark part of modern life: the opioid crisis. Rather than taking facts and figures, death counts and dysfunction, as his focus, he takes Story. The Story of Mary Jo Howard, defense counsel for the Sacklers during lawsuits. The
One very interesting Story for me was that of Richard Sackler, son of Raymond and one of the family members who ran Purdue Pharma, told by his college roommate and friend. How Richard was oblivious to social or emotional or spoken cues from others that resulted in broken ties and hurt feelings. Applying that Story to Richard's leadership in a company that chose to reward doctors for writing more and more prescriptions for an addictive substance, and rewarding company sales reps for finding these doctors who would write more prescriptions because the company would have higher sales. The sense of preserving the company's (and family's) wealth through greater sales, instead of looking at the harm of opioid addiction, was a stark Story of how the opioid crisis has worsened due to one man's emotional abyss.
And on, and on, and on. And it is really, really hard to put down. Or decide to stop at a chapter when another chapter is just one page away. And yet, sometimes I just had to because we all know where this story ends (finished in 2020 and published in 2021, so pending lawsuits). My hat is off to Keefe for writing such a readable and necessary book.
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Story of Arthur Sackler and his two brothers, Raymond and Mortimer. The boundless energy of Arthur Sackler is an interesting Story, as is his decision to create a magazine full of his writings, marketed to doctors. The Story of Valium and the Stories that supported writing prescriptions for it, back in the 60's and 70's.One very interesting Story for me was that of Richard Sackler, son of Raymond and one of the family members who ran Purdue Pharma, told by his college roommate and friend. How Richard was oblivious to social or emotional or spoken cues from others that resulted in broken ties and hurt feelings. Applying that Story to Richard's leadership in a company that chose to reward doctors for writing more and more prescriptions for an addictive substance, and rewarding company sales reps for finding these doctors who would write more prescriptions because the company would have higher sales. The sense of preserving the company's (and family's) wealth through greater sales, instead of looking at the harm of opioid addiction, was a stark Story of how the opioid crisis has worsened due to one man's emotional abyss.
And on, and on, and on. And it is really, really hard to put down. Or decide to stop at a chapter when another chapter is just one page away. And yet, sometimes I just had to because we all know where this story ends (finished in 2020 and published in 2021, so pending lawsuits). My hat is off to Keefe for writing such a readable and necessary book.
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LibraryThing member Castlelass
“There are many good books about the opioid crisis. My intention was to tell a different kind of story, however, a saga about three generations of a family dynasty and the ways in which it changed the world – a story about ambition, philanthropy, crime and impunity, the corruption of
Narrative non-fiction about the wealthy Sackler family, their company, Purdue Pharma, and the sale of OxyContin that directly contributed to opioid crisis. The book is structured in three sections:
“Patriarch” tells the story of Arthur Sackler, and his two brothers, Mortimer and Raymond. It relates the early history of Arthur’s wealth accumulation through drug-related advertising. Keefe argues that Arthur setup the processes of promoting drugs in medical journals (that he owned), courting advocates in regulatory agencies and legal firms, and keeping the family name separate from their business transactions.
“Dynasty” recounts the development and promotion of OxyContin by the next generation of Sackler family members, who ran Purdue Pharma. It explores the 2007 settlement, and the subsequent continuation of business as usual. They basically took a “blame the consumer” stance. They “bought” key players by giving them plum consulting jobs or positions within the company. It portrays avarice and entitlement run amok.
“Legacy” explores the fallout that occurred when family members were finally named in lawsuits. It depicts their denials of responsibility and withdrawal of funds from the company. It discusses the ultimate corporate bankruptcy, while the family members retained their ill-gotten millions.
This book provides a classic example of what can happen when a private company goes unchecked. The checks and balances that were supposed to prevent this type of abuse failed due to corruption and greed. The watchdogs were in the pocket of the wealthy. The executives were making decisions to maximize revenue regardless of the human impact. It would make great material for a class in business ethics on what not to do.
I can also recommend Dopesick by Beth Macy to provide another angle on this tragedy – the human toll of the opioid crisis and the heart-breaking personal stories of addiction.
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institutions, power, and greed. As such, there are aspects of the public health crisis that this book gives scant attention to from the science of addition to the best strategies for treatment and abatement to the struggles of people living with an opioid use disorder.” Narrative non-fiction about the wealthy Sackler family, their company, Purdue Pharma, and the sale of OxyContin that directly contributed to opioid crisis. The book is structured in three sections:
“Patriarch” tells the story of Arthur Sackler, and his two brothers, Mortimer and Raymond. It relates the early history of Arthur’s wealth accumulation through drug-related advertising. Keefe argues that Arthur setup the processes of promoting drugs in medical journals (that he owned), courting advocates in regulatory agencies and legal firms, and keeping the family name separate from their business transactions.
“Dynasty” recounts the development and promotion of OxyContin by the next generation of Sackler family members, who ran Purdue Pharma. It explores the 2007 settlement, and the subsequent continuation of business as usual. They basically took a “blame the consumer” stance. They “bought” key players by giving them plum consulting jobs or positions within the company. It portrays avarice and entitlement run amok.
“Legacy” explores the fallout that occurred when family members were finally named in lawsuits. It depicts their denials of responsibility and withdrawal of funds from the company. It discusses the ultimate corporate bankruptcy, while the family members retained their ill-gotten millions.
This book provides a classic example of what can happen when a private company goes unchecked. The checks and balances that were supposed to prevent this type of abuse failed due to corruption and greed. The watchdogs were in the pocket of the wealthy. The executives were making decisions to maximize revenue regardless of the human impact. It would make great material for a class in business ethics on what not to do.
I can also recommend Dopesick by Beth Macy to provide another angle on this tragedy – the human toll of the opioid crisis and the heart-breaking personal stories of addiction.
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LibraryThing member alexrichman
Keefe now firmly in the ‘must read every book he writes’ bracket. Deftly charts the rise and fall of the Sacklers and, like his previous book, never lets you forget the horrific effects of the sorry saga on innocent people.
LibraryThing member basilisksam
The book is organised in three parts The second and third parts are a terrific and informative read. I found the first part to be overly detailed. Yes we need to know about the origins and character types of the earlier generation of the Sacklers but there were lots of details on the wives,
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mistresses and children of the main players that I could have done without. I can see how the details would be of interest to the historian but to me as a general reader I just didn't care once it became clear that the Sacklers were so unpleasant, if not psychopathic, that it was no surprise how they treated their own families. I'm perhaps carping too much as it really is an excellent and important book. Show Less
LibraryThing member lisapeet
This is a fantastic piece of longform investigative journalism/narrative nonfiction. I think part of what I loved was just seeing what he did in terms of pulling his research together to form an honestly gripping story—not always a given that it's a detailed internal history of a large pharma they were going to get to keep all their money and dodge a lot of accountability , which was just so disappointing—but no criticism of Keefe's writing, to be sure. It's a fascinating story and he's a great storyteller.
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corporation—but I was pretty rapt all the way through. Or at least until the last few pages when it became clear that Show Less
LibraryThing member sblock
Wish I could give it more stars.
LibraryThing member brianinbuffalo
As someone whose family was ravaged by drug addiction, reading this meticulously researched look about a dynasty that ruthlessly operated what could be considered a legalized drug cartel was excruciating, infuriating and ultimately enlightening. One source suggests that the Sackler family presided
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over "a rising tide of misery and death," ushering in a truly tragic chapter in the annals of corporate greed. Based on the stunning facts presented in Keefe's work, this assertion doesn't appear to be an overstatement. True, the book takes its time getting to the opioid crisis. However, the family's detailed backstory is critical to understanding this despicable saga. "Empire of Pain" sheds light on the pharmaceutical and advertising industries, chronicling a heartbreaking saga that has impacted so many people. Show Less
LibraryThing member rivkat
The story of the Sackler family, from the patriarch who invented modern pharma marketing (including for Librium)—with a big order of lies and corruption of FDA officials—to the children who oversaw the rise of the opioid crisis in the US and then pivoted to exporting it elsewhere once they’d
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done so much damage here as to be undeniable. And then Trump’s DOJ mostly let the family off the hook, though the story isn’t quite over. Massachusetts AG Maura Healey is one of the book’s heroes. In the earlier parts, with Arthur/his brothers’ story, I kept thinking how they probably at least knew people who knew my doctor grandfather—also raised in the NY area by working-class immigrants, also excluded from most med schools because he was Jewish (Arthur dodged this by being just old enough to go through before the policies were firmly in place, but his brothers didn’t), also even worked as a soda jerk in a pharmacy to earn the cash to go to med school, but he chose radical politics and seeing patients instead of advertising drugs and now my name is not synonymous with callous greed. Show Less
LibraryThing member Stbalbach
I came to this with eyes open, willing to give the Sackler's the benefit of the doubt and recognize journalistic techniques that cherry picks the bad and ignores the good for the purpose of story. Indeed, some of that goes on here. Nevertheless, the evidence is damning. The Sacklers knew from the
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start OxyContin is addictive and destroyed lives, they had a limited amount of time to push opioids before they would be forced to stop. They cynically hauled in as much cash as possible, all the while denying. It is a smaller version of the tobacco and fossil fuel situation, played out over a compressed time frame because the drug is so devastating. The book is unsatisfying in the end because there is no resolution, the Sacklers are still free and have billions hidden away. But the case goes on. The family is currently fleeing to Western Europe (London, Switzerland) to live a discreet life with private banking. Can they be brought to justice? The writing is top notch, expect a Pulitzer contender and/or optioned. Show Less
LibraryThing member alizarin
Incredibly interesting read and very well written. Would highly recommend.
LibraryThing member Lemeritus
Delivers us to the doorstep of this month's headlines (July 2021). An unflinching examination of a family without compassion, a society in flight from pain, and the harsh reality that "People like us don't go to jail."
LibraryThing member JosephKing6602
Very good book about the Sackler family and Oxycontin; clear writing, very thorough and insightful
LibraryThing member breic
The biography of Arthur Sackler, at the start, is especially good, even if I'd heard much of it before. The more modern Sackler stories are weaker. (Probably because the Sacklers are so private, and Keefe's sources are usually disgruntled ex-employees who aren't trustworthy. I assume that any
> In 1996, Purdue had introduced a groundbreaking drug, a powerful opioid painkiller called OxyContin, which was heralded as a revolutionary way to treat chronic pain. The drug became one of the biggest blockbusters in pharmaceutical history, generating some $35 billion in revenue. But it also led to a rash of addiction and abuse.
> Within eighteen months, Pfizer had increased its sales force from those eight men to three hundred. By 1957, they would have two thousand. Terramycin wasn’t a particularly groundbreaking product, but it became a huge success because it was marketed in a way that no drug ever had been. It was Arthur Sackler who would be credited not just with this campaign but with revolutionizing the whole field of medical advertising
> To the outside world, Sackler and Frohlich were competitors. But the truth was, Arthur had helped Frohlich set up his business, staking him money, sending him clients, and, ultimately, colluding with him in secret to divvy up the pharmaceutical business. “It was very, very important at that time to…make sure you could get as much business as possible,” Arthur’s longtime attorney, Michael Sonnenreich, would explain, decades later. The challenge was that because of conflict of interest rules no single agency could handle two accounts for competing products. “So what they did was, they set up two agencies,”
> The motto of Dumas’s musketeers was “One for all and all for one,” and on a snowy evening in the late 1940s the brothers and Bill Frohlich had stood on a street corner in Manhattan and made a similar pact. According to Richard Leather, an attorney who represented all four men and subsequently formalized the agreement, they pledged to pool their combined business holdings. They would help one another in business and agree to share all of their corporate assets. When one died, the remaining three would inherit control of the businesses. When the second died, the remaining two would inherit. When the third died, the last musketeer would assume control of all of the businesses. And when the last man died, all of those businesses would pass into a charitable trust
> He suggested that he would purchase from the Met all of the artworks that would fill the new space—a series of Asian masterpieces that the Met had acquired back in the 1920s. He offered to pay the price that the Met had originally paid—the 1920s price—and then donate the works back to the museum, with the understanding that each piece would henceforth be described as a “gift of Arthur Sackler,” even though they had belonged to the museum all along. This would be a convenient way for the museum to generate some additional revenue and for Arthur to attach the Sackler name to more objects. Arthur had also become attuned to the advantages of gaming the tax code, so for tax purposes he declared each donation not at the price he paid for it but at the present market value.
> A month or so after Eisenhower awarded the prize of this ancient Egyptian temple to the Met, modern-day Egypt went to war with Israel. Hoving had always intended to raise money from wealthy New Yorkers, but Egypt and all things Egyptian were suddenly out of fashion. The temple itself had been shipped in pieces, arriving at a dock in Brooklyn, and it now sat in a parking lot, cocooned in a protective plastic bubble, while Hoving tried to raise the money to build its new home. But no donor wanted his name on a temple from Egypt.
> “How the Reformulation of OxyContin Ignited the Heroin Epidemic.”
> According to a study by The Wall Street Journal, when you take into account the dosage strength of each pill, Purdue actually accounted for a market-leading 27 percent of all oxycodone sold.
> the Sacklers secretly owned another pharmaceutical company, in addition to Purdue, and it was one of the biggest manufacturers of generic opioids in the United States. Rhodes Pharmaceuticals
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Purdue Pharma executive will lie.) I think that the story would also be stronger if Keefe kept his journalistic objectivity. I don't see why Sacklers who didn't get money from Purdue should be disparaged, but Keefe doesn't draw much of a distinction. And if Purdue sold 27% of oxycodone (plus whatever Rhodes sold), what about the other manufacturers? Perhaps it is outside the scope of this book, but I need to know something about it to understand the context. > In 1996, Purdue had introduced a groundbreaking drug, a powerful opioid painkiller called OxyContin, which was heralded as a revolutionary way to treat chronic pain. The drug became one of the biggest blockbusters in pharmaceutical history, generating some $35 billion in revenue. But it also led to a rash of addiction and abuse.
> Within eighteen months, Pfizer had increased its sales force from those eight men to three hundred. By 1957, they would have two thousand. Terramycin wasn’t a particularly groundbreaking product, but it became a huge success because it was marketed in a way that no drug ever had been. It was Arthur Sackler who would be credited not just with this campaign but with revolutionizing the whole field of medical advertising
> To the outside world, Sackler and Frohlich were competitors. But the truth was, Arthur had helped Frohlich set up his business, staking him money, sending him clients, and, ultimately, colluding with him in secret to divvy up the pharmaceutical business. “It was very, very important at that time to…make sure you could get as much business as possible,” Arthur’s longtime attorney, Michael Sonnenreich, would explain, decades later. The challenge was that because of conflict of interest rules no single agency could handle two accounts for competing products. “So what they did was, they set up two agencies,”
> The motto of Dumas’s musketeers was “One for all and all for one,” and on a snowy evening in the late 1940s the brothers and Bill Frohlich had stood on a street corner in Manhattan and made a similar pact. According to Richard Leather, an attorney who represented all four men and subsequently formalized the agreement, they pledged to pool their combined business holdings. They would help one another in business and agree to share all of their corporate assets. When one died, the remaining three would inherit control of the businesses. When the second died, the remaining two would inherit. When the third died, the last musketeer would assume control of all of the businesses. And when the last man died, all of those businesses would pass into a charitable trust
> He suggested that he would purchase from the Met all of the artworks that would fill the new space—a series of Asian masterpieces that the Met had acquired back in the 1920s. He offered to pay the price that the Met had originally paid—the 1920s price—and then donate the works back to the museum, with the understanding that each piece would henceforth be described as a “gift of Arthur Sackler,” even though they had belonged to the museum all along. This would be a convenient way for the museum to generate some additional revenue and for Arthur to attach the Sackler name to more objects. Arthur had also become attuned to the advantages of gaming the tax code, so for tax purposes he declared each donation not at the price he paid for it but at the present market value.
> A month or so after Eisenhower awarded the prize of this ancient Egyptian temple to the Met, modern-day Egypt went to war with Israel. Hoving had always intended to raise money from wealthy New Yorkers, but Egypt and all things Egyptian were suddenly out of fashion. The temple itself had been shipped in pieces, arriving at a dock in Brooklyn, and it now sat in a parking lot, cocooned in a protective plastic bubble, while Hoving tried to raise the money to build its new home. But no donor wanted his name on a temple from Egypt.
> “How the Reformulation of OxyContin Ignited the Heroin Epidemic.”
> According to a study by The Wall Street Journal, when you take into account the dosage strength of each pill, Purdue actually accounted for a market-leading 27 percent of all oxycodone sold.
> the Sacklers secretly owned another pharmaceutical company, in addition to Purdue, and it was one of the biggest manufacturers of generic opioids in the United States. Rhodes Pharmaceuticals
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LibraryThing member etxgardener
I don’t often consider people evil, but that’s the only word I can use to describe the Sackler family who almost single-handily started the opiod crisis in the united States and kept it going while making billions of dollars for themselves.
Arthur, the head of the family started his career in
H then bought his own pharmaceutical company that was selling over the counter drugs & began to sell the extremely addictive oxycontin. The family grew very rich in these endeavors and Arthur began to collect works of art and then to endow the great art museums of the country, as well as the country’s distinguished universities. These august institutions were complicit in the family’s crimes as even as the Sackler’s culpability in the nation’s crisis of addiction became apparent, they kept accepting the large donations they had come to rely on over the years.
To this day, none of the Sacklers have been prosecuted for their crimes and their “settlement” with the Federal government left them with their fortunes largely intact. All Through this book I kept thinking of the famous line from The Great Gatsby: “They were careless people, ….they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” This is the perfect description for the Sackler family.
Arthur, the head of the family started his career in
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advertising, pushing early tranquilizers like Milltown and Valium. It was Arthur who developed the modern pharmaceutical sales force, enticing doctors to try the drugs he was promoting with free samples and “medical seminars” in exotic locations.H then bought his own pharmaceutical company that was selling over the counter drugs & began to sell the extremely addictive oxycontin. The family grew very rich in these endeavors and Arthur began to collect works of art and then to endow the great art museums of the country, as well as the country’s distinguished universities. These august institutions were complicit in the family’s crimes as even as the Sackler’s culpability in the nation’s crisis of addiction became apparent, they kept accepting the large donations they had come to rely on over the years.
To this day, none of the Sacklers have been prosecuted for their crimes and their “settlement” with the Federal government left them with their fortunes largely intact. All Through this book I kept thinking of the famous line from The Great Gatsby: “They were careless people, ….they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” This is the perfect description for the Sackler family.
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LibraryThing member maryreinert
The Sackler "family" began with an ambitious Jewish immigrant named Issac Sackler who instilled into his three sons (Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond) hard word and the importance of a "good name." Arthur was extremely bright, charismatic, and a workaholic. He overcame poverty and anti-Semitism and
With fast wealth, Arthur became interested in art, especially Asian art and purchased millions of dollars of valuable art pieces. Mortimer soon became the "international" director of the company and acquired property around the world - as well as a total of three wives finally. Arthur too found a much younger wife although his first wife remained very involved in the business. Eventually, he too found a third an much younger wife.
As the company grew and after Arthur's death, his descendants became estranged from the Mortimer and Raymond's families. Raymond's son, Richard, took over much of the directorship of the company and OxyContin was soon the drug that Perdue Pharma as it was now known was the moneymaker. Richard followed Arthur's aggressive marketing tactics always downplayind the danger of the drug and pushing for higher and higher doses - always the bottom line was money. Drug reps were trained to focus on certain parts of the country, call on questionable doctors, and do anything in order to sell the product. Their thought was that the drug was saving people from chronic pain - they give little attention to the increasing concerns by the drug reps and others about addiction.
This is a story of greed. Brilliant people who were so consumed with their own importance and worth and a family that let nothing stand in the way of obtaining more wealth in the US and around the world. Although many in the family were deeply involved in the daily operation of the company, they always keep the family name in the background. Instead, they became huge philanthropists giving billions of dollars especially to art museums around the world which would put the Sackler name on the building.
The investigation and writing of this book is so thorough with pages and pages of notes. The writing is almost like a novel as the author intertwines the family's personal stories with the vast complicated business world of Purdue Pharma. The final collapse of the company into bankruptcy is told in detail along with the fact that the family managed to salvage billions of dollars. Totally fascinating book.
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began work in a barbaric mental institution when he came upon the idea of a drug that would help not only extreme mental illness but would also be a value to the person who was suffering from any kind of anxiety, fear, or depression. Valium was the result and Arthur was the first to aggressively market a prescription drug after he purchased Purdue Frederick, the drug manufacturer. As a result the marketing millions of prescriptions were filled for this drug or for similar drugs. The company grew so fast that Mortimer and Raymond were taken into the company. With fast wealth, Arthur became interested in art, especially Asian art and purchased millions of dollars of valuable art pieces. Mortimer soon became the "international" director of the company and acquired property around the world - as well as a total of three wives finally. Arthur too found a much younger wife although his first wife remained very involved in the business. Eventually, he too found a third an much younger wife.
As the company grew and after Arthur's death, his descendants became estranged from the Mortimer and Raymond's families. Raymond's son, Richard, took over much of the directorship of the company and OxyContin was soon the drug that Perdue Pharma as it was now known was the moneymaker. Richard followed Arthur's aggressive marketing tactics always downplayind the danger of the drug and pushing for higher and higher doses - always the bottom line was money. Drug reps were trained to focus on certain parts of the country, call on questionable doctors, and do anything in order to sell the product. Their thought was that the drug was saving people from chronic pain - they give little attention to the increasing concerns by the drug reps and others about addiction.
This is a story of greed. Brilliant people who were so consumed with their own importance and worth and a family that let nothing stand in the way of obtaining more wealth in the US and around the world. Although many in the family were deeply involved in the daily operation of the company, they always keep the family name in the background. Instead, they became huge philanthropists giving billions of dollars especially to art museums around the world which would put the Sackler name on the building.
The investigation and writing of this book is so thorough with pages and pages of notes. The writing is almost like a novel as the author intertwines the family's personal stories with the vast complicated business world of Purdue Pharma. The final collapse of the company into bankruptcy is told in detail along with the fact that the family managed to salvage billions of dollars. Totally fascinating book.
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LibraryThing member moekane
Fascinating and appalling history of one family's contribution ution to the current narcotic epidemic. Their legal machinations are particularly heinous.
A generally excellent audiobook, marred only by the occasional non-preferred pronunciation (ad JUT ant) and unexpected pauses before (usually)
A generally excellent audiobook, marred only by the occasional non-preferred pronunciation (ad JUT ant) and unexpected pauses before (usually)
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dependent clauses at sentencing e ends. Show Less
LibraryThing member ASKelmore
Best for:
Those interested in how corporations and the government have failed us. Those who enjoy a little bit of schadenfreude (though, in my opinion, not nearly enough).
In a nutshell:
The Sackler family, obsessed with their reputation and ‘good name,’ help 400,000 people to their deaths via the
Why I chose it:
I loved the author’s book ‘Say Nothing’ about The Troubles in Northern Ireland and searched for other work. Saw this was being released in April so ordered it right away.
Review:
What is a name, really? Is philanthropy truly a gift if it comes with so many strings, including the need to have one’s name splashed across all the things? How do we hold accountable the leaders of corporations that cause pain and suffering for millions?
Author Keefe explores all these themes in his excellent book that focuses on the Sackler family, the name behind the billion-dollar pain empire via one of the ventures they chose not to put their name on, Purdue Pharma. If you’re not familiar, Purdue Pharma patented OxiContin, the extraordinarily strong opioid pain reliever introduced in the 1990s.
The book opens with a deposition in the late 2010s, but immediately jumps back to the early 1900s so we can follow three generations of the Sackler family, starting with boys Arthur, Raymund, and Mortimer. Arthur took the lead as the first born to take a bunch of jobs, supporting his family. He and his brothers all went to medical school, and all married (some of them multiple times). Over time Arthur especially starts to build the empire with medical marketing, then the purchase of Purdue Frederick and Purdue Pharma.
Each successive generation seems to be obsessed with putting their names on EVERYTHING. It kind of reminds me of the Trump family - there’s just this deep, almost pathological, need to piss all over the place. I don’t understand obsessions with names and legacy. Maybe it’s because I’m not having kids? To my mind, one’s legacy should be doing good things because they should be done, not because one wants credit and a fancy plaque at the entrance to a museum gallery.
The Sacklers do not ever get what they deserve - though the very last chapter does have a slight sense of comeuppance. They are helped in many ways by the FDA — who should have shut down OxiContin’s claims from the start — but also by the Trump DOJ, who chose not the prosecute the individual family members in addition to the privately owned company. The family made billions off of the addiction of others, essentially creating not just the opioid epidemic but, when they changed the formulation, helping push those individuals on to heroin.
They are evil. And while they do get to sleep on their giant pillows of ill-gotten money, at least one thing is now true: they have completely ruined the name they hold so dear. Museums and universities they donated to have started to strip their name from it (the Louvre, most notably, as well as medical programs at NYU and Tufts), as they don’t want to be associated with such immoral, vile individuals. But it still won’t bring back the lives lost at their hands.
Keep it / Pass to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Pass to a Friend
Those interested in how corporations and the government have failed us. Those who enjoy a little bit of schadenfreude (though, in my opinion, not nearly enough).
In a nutshell:
The Sackler family, obsessed with their reputation and ‘good name,’ help 400,000 people to their deaths via the
Show More
opioid epidemic.Why I chose it:
I loved the author’s book ‘Say Nothing’ about The Troubles in Northern Ireland and searched for other work. Saw this was being released in April so ordered it right away.
Review:
What is a name, really? Is philanthropy truly a gift if it comes with so many strings, including the need to have one’s name splashed across all the things? How do we hold accountable the leaders of corporations that cause pain and suffering for millions?
Author Keefe explores all these themes in his excellent book that focuses on the Sackler family, the name behind the billion-dollar pain empire via one of the ventures they chose not to put their name on, Purdue Pharma. If you’re not familiar, Purdue Pharma patented OxiContin, the extraordinarily strong opioid pain reliever introduced in the 1990s.
The book opens with a deposition in the late 2010s, but immediately jumps back to the early 1900s so we can follow three generations of the Sackler family, starting with boys Arthur, Raymund, and Mortimer. Arthur took the lead as the first born to take a bunch of jobs, supporting his family. He and his brothers all went to medical school, and all married (some of them multiple times). Over time Arthur especially starts to build the empire with medical marketing, then the purchase of Purdue Frederick and Purdue Pharma.
Each successive generation seems to be obsessed with putting their names on EVERYTHING. It kind of reminds me of the Trump family - there’s just this deep, almost pathological, need to piss all over the place. I don’t understand obsessions with names and legacy. Maybe it’s because I’m not having kids? To my mind, one’s legacy should be doing good things because they should be done, not because one wants credit and a fancy plaque at the entrance to a museum gallery.
The Sacklers do not ever get what they deserve - though the very last chapter does have a slight sense of comeuppance. They are helped in many ways by the FDA — who should have shut down OxiContin’s claims from the start — but also by the Trump DOJ, who chose not the prosecute the individual family members in addition to the privately owned company. The family made billions off of the addiction of others, essentially creating not just the opioid epidemic but, when they changed the formulation, helping push those individuals on to heroin.
They are evil. And while they do get to sleep on their giant pillows of ill-gotten money, at least one thing is now true: they have completely ruined the name they hold so dear. Museums and universities they donated to have started to strip their name from it (the Louvre, most notably, as well as medical programs at NYU and Tufts), as they don’t want to be associated with such immoral, vile individuals. But it still won’t bring back the lives lost at their hands.
Keep it / Pass to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Pass to a Friend
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LibraryThing member nmele
Another meticulously researched book from Patrick Radden Keefe, this one tracing the history of the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma from humble beginnings through the opioid addiction lawsuits. It is a grim story, and one full of ambiguities, denial and blaming the victims. A necessary examination
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of big Pharma and how little it cares for human beings. Show Less
LibraryThing member gbelik
A fascinating story of the Sackler family, well researched and detailed.
LibraryThing member msf59
This meticulously written and researched book takes a hard look at the Sackler dynasty- the family behind the marketing and creation of OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis. The narrative covers many decades. I found the family to be a microcosm of
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capitalistic America, where money is king and nothing else matters, including the staggering numbers of over-dose deaths. A good companion piece to Dopesick. Show Less
LibraryThing member secondhandrose
Excellent investigation into the family behind OxyContin and the subsequent opioid epidemic. Patrick Radden Keefe is an excellent long form journalist and in this study of the Sackler family and their aggressive manufacture and marketing of a pain relief drug, Radden Keefe reports that he was
More Americans died during the opioid epidemic than in the US’s foray into Vietnam.
Radden Keefe makes narrative non fiction so interesting.
2023 Nonfiction Reader Challenge - Health
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sometimes overwhelmed by the amount of material he could gather. In most instances, court records from the multitude of challenges brought against Purdue Pharma. The owners vigorously denied their opioid OxyContin was addictive despite medical evidence showing otherwise. Using the family’s wealth to buy complicity from federal agencies, the legal and medical systems and employees and to buy immortality through philanthropy, the family come across as amoral megalomaniacs whose sole objective is greed. More Americans died during the opioid epidemic than in the US’s foray into Vietnam.
Radden Keefe makes narrative non fiction so interesting.
2023 Nonfiction Reader Challenge - Health
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LibraryThing member Pferdina
Follows the whole story of the Sackler brothers from the 1930's to 2020. First part primarily focuses on Arthur Sackler and how he and his two brothers got started in the industry, later parts concern the next generations of Sacklers who were involved in oxycontin and the associated opioid crisis.
LibraryThing member RajivC
I bought this book after watching the Netflix series, "Painkiller." The book is scary. When I started the book, I questioned the backstory's relevance and Arthur Sackler's relevance. However, as I progressed through the book, I understood how his philosophy influenced the later generations of
Arthur Sackler was a brilliant man, and his marketing innovations and the formation of the IMS were brilliant. However, it is personality and philosophy that influenced succeeding generations.
The Sackler family was diabolical. However, they could not have become successful were it not for a pliant regulatory environment.
The book is more than a commentary on the Sackler family. It is a commentary on society, businesses, and our environment. Money cannot rule everything.
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Sacklers.Arthur Sackler was a brilliant man, and his marketing innovations and the formation of the IMS were brilliant. However, it is personality and philosophy that influenced succeeding generations.
The Sackler family was diabolical. However, they could not have become successful were it not for a pliant regulatory environment.
The book is more than a commentary on the Sackler family. It is a commentary on society, businesses, and our environment. Money cannot rule everything.
Show Less
Awards
National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist — Nonfiction — 2021)
Crime Writers' Association Awards (Shortlist — 2022)
British Book Award (Shortlist — 2022)
Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction (Longlist — Nonfiction — 2022)
Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction (Winner — 2021)
Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year (Longlist — 2021)
BookTube Prize (Finalist — Nonfiction — 2022)
J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize (Nominee — 2022)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (Social Sciences — 2021)
NPR: Books We Love (2021)
Boston Globe Best Book (Nonfiction — 2021)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Nonfiction — 2021)
Notable Books List (Nonfiction — 2022)
Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year (Nonfiction — 2021)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (Nonfiction — 2021)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2021)
New York Public Library Best Books: For Adults (Nonfiction — 2021)
ISBN
0385545681 / 9780385545686
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