| Yes. They very likely did. Kaiser Health News has a good roundup of articles on this very topic. https://khn.org/morning-breakout/documents-reveal-just-how-i... There are such gems as: "That email and other internal Purdue communications are cited by the attorney general of Massachusetts in a new court filing against the company, released on Tuesday. They represent the first evidence that appears to tie the Sacklers to specific decisions made by the company about the marketing of OxyContin. The aggressive promotion of the drug helped ignite the opioid epidemic. The filing contends that Mr. Sackler, a son of a Purdue Pharma founder, urged that sales representatives advise doctors to prescribe the highest dosage of the powerful opioid painkiller because it was the most profitable." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/health/sacklers-purdue-ox... "In a new 274-page memorandum, Attorney General Maura Healey details a chain of command that she alleges implicates eight Sackler family members, as well as nine Purdue board members or executives, in the nation's deadly opioid epidemic." https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2019/01/15/healey-purdue-o... Sackler family members seemed to have played a very hands-on role in the aggressive marketing of the drugs, and probably have their fingerprints all over internal company policies such as: "...a copy of a confidential Justice Department report shows that federal prosecutors investigating the company found that Purdue Pharma knew about “significant” abuse of OxyContin in the first years after the drug’s introduction in 1996 and concealed that information." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/health/purdue-opioids-oxy... Unless I misread your comment and you just mean did they commit a crime in accepting the plea bargain, and then no I guess not in the letter of the law. Certainly the spirit of the law was not honored here, however, as no member of the Sacker family seems to have been brought up on criminal charges. They just wrote a check and walked away admitting.."no wrongdoing and will remain one of the wealthiest families in America." |
Thanks for raising them, it puts the matter into proper perspective.