A branch of the Sackler family has launched a website denying responsibility for the US opioid epidemic even after agreeing to pay billions of dollars to settle lawsuits over the crisis. It says the Sackler family regrets that the drug “unexpectedly became part of the opioid crisis” but that those members who ran Purdue “acted lawfully and ethically”. The Sacklers said the website was intended to counter “the many false allegations” by lawyers seeking to “vilify Purdue and the Sackler family”. When the amount of opioid in the drugs is taken into account, OxyContin accounted for 16% of the market. The Sacklers’ claims are at odds with a wide body of studies into the roots of the epidemic.

Source: The Guardian June 01, 2021 16:25 UTC