Purdue Pharma, the company that developed the prescription painkiller OxyContin, is widely held to be at the root of the crisis. Not only did it bribe doctors and aggressively market the medication to be overprescribed in low-income, suffering communities for illegitimate medical purposes, but it built an “empire of pain” with callous disregard, knowing it caused addiction and abuse. Purdue Pharma dates back to 1892 and has been run by the Sackler family since 1952. OxyContin produced pervasive human misery, many lawsuits (most of which were settled out of court), and $35 billion of revenue. Mortimer Sackler used this wealth to pursue a life of art and philanthropy, plastering the Sackler name around the world on dozens of cultural institutions, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Gallery, and the Louvre, as well as universities, such as Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford.

XREF: This connects to the broader opioid epidemic coverage and the recent renaming of Sackler-named institutions like the Louvre's Sackler Wing.

Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, loc. 289