Daily: PRESCRIPTION FOR DISASTER – The drug dynasty behind America’s opioid crisis

<p>The vastly wealthy Sackler family are known as respectable patrons of the arts, but the story behind their philanthropy is a dark one. The Sacklers made their billions from OxyContin or “Hillbilly Heroin”, the $35m prescription drug that precipitated America’s opioid crisis – an epidemic that has killed half a million people.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Patrick Radden Keefe,</strong> author of <em>Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty</em>, tells Ros Taylor about the corruption and influence that turned a deadly addictive drug into a medical staple, how the Sacklers insulated themselves from what they’d done, and how racism in medicine – surprisingly – spared many African Americans while devastating poor whites.</p><p><br></p><p><em>•&nbsp;“The truth has caught up with the Sacklers. I don’t know that justice ever will.”</em></p><p><em>•&nbsp;“This story is a slow-moving disaster. It took a quarter of a century to get to a quarter of a million deaths.”&nbsp;</em></p><p><em>•&nbsp;“Many people hooked on OxyContin just switched to heroin when they reformulated it in 2010.”&nbsp;</em></p><p><em>•&nbsp;“The question is, What did the Sacklers know about the harm OxyContin caused? And evidence shows that they DID know.”&nbsp;</em></p><p><br></p><p><em>Presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. </em><strong><em>THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production</em></strong></p> &#10;&nbsp;<br /><hr><p style='color: grey; font - size: 0.75em; '>See <a style='color: grey; ' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.</p>