Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

by Patrick Radden Keefe

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Crime & JusticeSociety & Culture

The Sackler name hung on museum galleries until institutions started taking it down. Keefe's story is the fortune behind it, roughly $14 billion, which three Brooklyn-raised brothers built on selling drugs to doctors, from Arthur Sackler's direct-to-physician advertising to Purdue Pharma's OxyContin.

Core ideas
  • Before OxyContin: Sackler-linked marketing pushed Librium and Valium, and by the mid-1970s Valium was being prescribed some 60 million times a year.
  • Knowing and selling: Purdue launched OxyContin in 1996, and the book details how the company worked on doctors and politicians while, by this account, the family knew the drug was addictive.
  • Distance as strategy: The family worked to distance itself from the litigation, stayed among the wealthiest families after Purdue's bankruptcy, and the author faced legal intimidation while reporting.
Published2021
Pages535
ISBN9780385545686
ReadJun 2024

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