Opioid victims face Purdue owners in hope of closure

Kara Trainor wrote, looked at a camera, and began talking to the pharmacists she blamed for two decades of suffering extending from her to a son born with an opioid addiction.

Three family members who own OxyContin’s Purdue Pharma silently watched or overheard the court hearing as Trainor described giving birth to a baby who quickly sank into withdrawal – “the cry will haunt you for the rest of your life” – and and what it was like to raise him. At 11, he still uses a cup and diapers.

Trainor and others who have suffered or lost relatives to opioid addiction have been waiting for years now: an immediate, albeit fictitious, confrontation with members of the Sackler family in court over the consequences of the painkiller that made them property while helping them feed deadly drug epidemic. The opportunity finally came for about two dozen victims or their relatives at an extraordinary hearing in bankruptcy court on Thursday.

Some appeared exhausted, others angry, others relieved, and all unsure if the Sacklers, who were not allowed to respond during the session, were moved. However, several people who made statements said that they valued that they could talk about their lost loved ones and show solidarity, and that they had taken a grain of determination.

“I can feel, as a mother, that my son was seen and heard by the family,” said Trainor, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, who took an OxyContin prescription at age 21 and soon became addicted. He is now 40 years old, recovering and collaborating with others struggling with drug abuse.

“It will be part of my treatment and part of a 20-year closure,” he said, “so I can finally hear.”

The victims demand settlement, closure

The hearing, extremely unusual for the US Bankruptcy Court, was proposed by an ombudsman who helped settle a possible settlement of thousands of Purdue lawsuits. If it gains final approval, the deal will generate $ 10 billion or more to combat addiction and overdose, with the Sacklers earning up to $ 6 billion in exchange for civil protection. As many as 149,000 people who have struggled with addiction or lost a loved one to it will receive $ 750 million under the arrangement.

One after another, the victims were linked from Hawaii to New Hampshire on Thursday with reports of surgeries and illnesses that led to OxyContin prescriptions, followed by addiction, despair, drug abuse rounds, personal and financial disaster and, very often, death from overdose or suicide.

Vitaly Pinkusov described waking up and finding the body of his 32-year-old wife cold in their bed. Kristy Nelson played a recording of her frantic call to 911 stating that her son was not answering. Stephanie Lubinski told how her husband entered their basement and shot himself in the chest.

Former Purdue chairman and board chairman Richard Sackler overheard the phone, which was painful for some victims who considered it disrespectful that he did not deal with them. His son, David Sackler, and another member of his family, Theresa Sackler, appeared on camera, appearing cautious but showing little reaction.

“They just sat there, alone but with a stony face, and they never changed their expression, ever,” said a disappointed Lubinski of Blaine, Minnesota.

The Sacklers never categorically apologized. They issued a statement last week saying they had acted legally but “regretted” that OxyContin “unexpectedly became part of an opioid crisis that has brought grief and loss to many families and communities”.

OxyContin, a pioneering long-acting prescription painkiller, was launched in 1996, and Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies funded efforts to suggest that prescribers consider opioids for a wider range of pain conditions than previously thought. Purdue claimed that far fewer than 1% of people who prescribed opioids developed addictions, although there were no rigorous studies to support the claim.

Waves of lethal opioid overdoses followed, from prescription drugs, heroin and more recently fentanyl and similar drugs. Purdue documents released in lawsuits appear to indicate that family members have been downgrading the crisis from time to time.

Tiffinee Scott asked the Sacklers if they had ever resurrected one of their children from an overdose, as they did for her daughter before eventually losing her to an overdose at 28. Tiarra Renee Brown-Lewis was prescribed OxyContin for pain from sickle cell disease. said the mother.

“Shame on you,” he told the Sacklers, though he later said he did not expect a reaction from people he considered heartless. For her, the point of the session was the impact of family unity and their common message.

“For once, we felt we had a sense of power over privileges, as this concerns the Sacklers,” he said.

After her 21-year-old son, Chris Yoder, died of an overdose, Dede Yoder used to swear at the Sacklers as he drove from Purdue headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, near her Norwalk home. She felt justified by the bankruptcy case and the public control of the Sacklers.

“A level of purification”

“Being a member of this court case is very important and my son’s story is part of the record,” she said after making her statement during the hearing.

Ryan Hampton from Las Vegas found “a level of cleansing” by filing Thursday for years of addiction, overdoses and periods of homelessness he endured after a knee injury. But he was bothered that the victims and their relatives were delivering a message that, in his view, should come from the authorities.

Like many of those who testified, he wants the Sacklers to be prosecuted. There is no indication that this will happen, although seven U.S. senators last month asked the Department of Justice to look into it. Purdue Pharma, meanwhile, has twice pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

Cheryl Juaire, meanwhile, is looking forward to the possibility of money flowing into addiction treatment programs and “starting to heal this country.” Juaire, from Marlborough, Massachusetts, lost two adult sons, Corey Merrill and Sean Merrill, who died just last June.

Jill Cichowicz, who lost her twin brother Scott Zebrowski, hopes Thursday’s unusual personal hearing “sets the tone for future companies and understands the consequences of their actions.”

For a long time, she had wondered what she would say to the Sacklers if she was ever given the chance.

“And then, when you’re really in the room across the street, you’re not really angry. You’re hurt,” said Cichowicz, of Richmond, Virginia. “It was a sense of closure, but in the same sense, I still suffer, I get hurt by their actions.”