Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

"It’s worth saying at the outset that one has to tread with care here because not all the Sacklers accept the allegations. I don’t think any of them would accept the full allegations, which are drawn rather well in this book. There are at least three strands of the family involved, one of which – headed by Arthur Sackler – was there at the outset, but who are no longer involved in ownership of Purdue Pharma, which belonged to his brothers Mortimer and Raymond Sackler and relatives. One of the things that Patrick Radden Keefe has managed to do with this book is somehow weave his way through the legal jeopardy, helped by the extraordinary disgorging of documents from court cases in the United States in relation to Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy and other elements of the story. That allowed him to trace the story of how the Sacklers created this company, and also the techniques used to market the drugs, going back many decades. There were lots of internal memos and things that were unearthed by the legal process. “It’s quite hard to find a book that brings a positive view of business that doesn’t fall over into boosterism” In parallel, as you’ve mentioned, the Sacklers were building a reputation as these extraordinary philanthropists, with art gallery and museum extensions and other things named after them. We could probably all come up with at least one example. Few people made the link between the family name and the pharmaceutical company that, ultimately, has been held responsible for encouraging the epidemic of opioid abuse. It’s a brilliantly told story and, again, fits into the compelling and enjoyable category very, very well. It’s also enraging for the reader. Radden Keefe has done a great job of maintaining objectivity while painting a picture of the way in which people connected to Purdue seemingly evaded responsibility for the problems it allegedly triggered."

"It’s an extraordinary book. He’s writing of extraordinary things, but that alone won’t make it a good book. There’s incredible artistry in putting this story together. And because he has a very transparent style—he’s a New Yorker staff writer—and it’s not fancy, it’s very easy to say, ‘Well, he just had to research it and write it down.’ But no, it’s incredibly beautifully done. It’s about the Sackler scandal, this family that’s made a fortune out of Oxycontin, this very, very addictive opioid that’s killed more Americans than have died in all the wars the country has fought since the Second World War . What he does is go back and look at the origins of the company, Purdue Pharma. It’s a fascinating story. It’s an immigrant family, Russian Jewish. The father has a grocer’s shop. They work incredibly hard. Against all the odds the three boys, the first generation, all become doctors. It is the American dream. They’re doing something extraordinary and it’s admirable at the start. They set up a company and are selling very unsexy products. It’s laxatives most of the time. But they have the idea that pharmaceuticals is about marketing. It’s about creating desire and demand, not just fulfilling it. They have a very successful 1970s because they do a lot of work with valium. Then along comes Oxycontin. It’s a story that reads like Succession —that drama series that’s very popular at the moment on HBO. It never becomes a public company, so there are boardroom squabbles, but it’s always family, which is what makes it so thrilling. It’s cousins and brothers not getting on, but getting on enough to decide that they’re going to produce this opioid they’ve stumbled across and they’re going to market the hell out of it. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter There’s also this very, very cozy culture whereby the FDA lets them market this highly, highly addictive and damaging opioid. Doctors become so entranced with it, that they set up pill mills on out-of-city-center car parks, where they sell the stuff off. It’s just the most extraordinary story of moral and physical corruption. The book also raises the really interesting point that’s often made about gun control. People say, ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people.’ Can you say that about Oxycontin? Can you say, ‘Look, it’s a choice: you don’t have to put that thing in your mouth’. He deals with that very nicely. So it’s a perfect blending of family history, dynastic shenanigans on a par with the Borgias, combined with a story that has just ruined so many people’s lives. The point being, of course, that the Sacklers are known around the world for their philanthropic gestures. There’s barely a Western city (and some in China too) that doesn’t have a Sackler wing or museum or department or a Sackler this or a Sackler that. There are Sackler medical wings, art galleries, Sackler is everywhere. Yes, and Keefe goes into the forensics of how they wanted you to think that. Specifically, they’ve separated themselves from the company. It’s not called Sackler, it’s called Purdue Pharma. It’s deliberate whitewashing. It’s just amazing. Then you have to ask yourself, what do you do? Many people are not accepting their money anymore, but do you have to hand it back? It’s a really interesting moral problem."