Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty [2022]
Patrick Radden Keefe writes in the lineage of great American Muckrakers. Ida Tarbel, Frank Norris, Upton Sinclair, Ida B. Wells, Louis Brandeis, and Carey McWilliams were the progenitor generation. They exposed injustice and the machinations of the malefactors of great wealth and fearlessly detailed the systemic wrongs in our beloved but flawed democracy. With Empire, Keefe now joins the ranks of Woodward and Bernstein, I. F. Stone, Frank Bardacke, David Halberstam and Mike Davis as chroniclers of power and its multiple abuses. Empire of Pain brings new blood to the hallowed muckraking tradition.
The book operates on interlinking levels: it is an inter-generational history of the Sackler family, a case history of predatory capitalism, a portrayal of undue influences of Big Pharma in general and Purdue Pharma in particular upon the judicial system and the Food and Drug Administration. It details the actions of executives, lawyers, doctors, and PR agents who enabled the promotion and legitimization of opioids and distribution of Oxycontin whose legacy, in turn, led to almost a half a million deaths. The book also shows how the mechanisms of art patronage helped secure legitimacy and obfuscate the Sacklers’ cold and calculating criminal network. The Sackler family -who, it is said, inspired the wildly successful series Succession- are exemplars of perfidy, avarice and greed. But that is not to say that their patronage is much different than the Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, and Mellon and Stanford foundations, legitimating through philanthropy their own corporate skullduggery. These behaviors didn’t start with the Sacklers nor will they end with the demise of Sacklers’ empire. The book is a shocking expose, an indictment of a family and Purdue Pharma that caused great damage to millions. Intertwined in this book Keefe -who dedicates the book to “all those who have lost someone to this crisis”- celebrates the relatives, journalists, artists, lawyers, and ex-addicts who helped to dismantle Purdue Pharma by mobilizing, organizing, litigating, and exposing this criminal enterprise.
Full disclosure: I have more than passing interest in the history of opioids. In my youth I used secobarbital, opium, heroin and dilaudid. These drugs helped dull my anxiety and fear. Their efficacy seemed wonderful at the time and while I consumed these drugs I read DeQuincy, Jean Cocteau, John Rechy, and William Burroughs. Burrough’s Junky had these lines that could be the motto of the Sackler family and, beyond that, the logic of Big Pharma: “Junk is the ultimate product…the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk is necessary. The client will crawl through the sewer and beg to buy….” The Sacklers built their empire on that strategy, they created the market and their sales force which included doctors and pharmacists who became frontline pushers. By a turn of fate I reached my personal bottom a long time ago and remain in recovery. I was impressed by Keefe’s passion and solid analysis but, as well, I took the book personally as I mourn many of my friends who died from opiates.
For more on the book see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HfLEUp9bOU
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