Patrick Radden Keefe: The Story Of Purdue Pharma Is ‘A Crime Story’ | The Last Word | MSNBC

Patrick Radden Keefe joins Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss his new book “Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty” and describes how the Sackler family changed the perception of how dangerous and addictive opioids were, the “shocking” paper trail of “what they knew and when they knew it” and the billions in profit they pulled out of Purdue Pharma while the company “was engaged in criminal misconduct.”
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Drawing upon his experience as a former chief of staff on the Senate Finance Committee and as an Emmy-winning executive producer and writer of "The West Wing," Lawrence O'Donnell examines the compelling and impactful political stories of the day. O'Donnell convenes diverse panels of guests, including a variety of politicians and cultural voices, to offer unique viewpoints and perspective. In his signature style, O'Donnell highlights the latest news developments and offers his take on the political stories driving the national conversation.

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27 comments

    1. This family are committing crimes they know they can get away with because they’re rich and privileged. (Expensive Lawyers) help.

    1. Sadly, the Sackler Family has their name everywhere as part of scrubbing the family name for polite society. I know they support the Guggenheim and have lots of buildings on prestigious college campuses with their name on them… but it’s hard to get the stink off.

  1. These drug lords are killing our friends and neighbors and laughing all the way to the bank.

  2. Let’s not forget the thousands of corrupt doctors, pharmacies and distributors who aided and financially benefited from this. They., alongside the Sackler family and all company honchos involved, should be ARRESTED AND CHARGED. Licenses to practice medicine should be SUSPENDED PERMANENTLY and pharmacists that helped move the merchandise should be BANNED FOR LIFE.

  3. Good old corporate greed. Brought to you by the same republicans who said giving the wealthy huge tax breaks would help working class Americans eventually.

  4. Purdue and every other opioid-maker with this kind of business model should be forced to use their ill-gotten gains from these drugs to pay for all the wrongful deaths and the survivors’ ongoing rehabilitation from these drugs, or go to prison like any other drug lord.

    1. Why not immediately seize all their assets? Who cares what they want – they are the criminals.

  5. Oxycontin almost killed me. If hadn’t made a special of myself that fateful day two years ago I believe that I would be dead by now. That stuff is wicked and will steal your Soul. You can’t see what it is doing to your thought process and you become confused, scared and angry if you don’t have any or are low because you took more than prescribed . THEN you start to go through withdrawal because you have a week to go before picking up your next bottle of oxycontin at the pharmacy.
    Many people then go to the streets looking to buy it or anything that will get you through the week. It’s horrible and they KNEW IT WAS ADDICTIVE.
    I am a burn Survivor. 26 year’s ago 52% of my body suffered 3rd , 4th and one area had 5th degree burns and I learned a lot about Chronic Pain and pain killer’s. They should have there pharmaceutical license away for good.

  6. The penalty for drug cartels is the confiscation of all their assets and the assets of all the people in this cartel, share holders, board members, executives, etc. This would pay for universal health care for America.

  7. Why take away the ones not addictive?
    *Please tell us why ALL PAIN Medication for veterans has been stopped?*

  8. still unrealized that there’s actually a distributional system to economic facts, that sets the stage for whatever’s produced determining who gets it’s income. it’s not merit only in other words that determines success. it’s more so who defines merit that determines which efforts get rewards. which is how sackler became such a monster, since he fed into the narrative that business when it comes to medicine in america is not to be regulated. the distribution was consequently biased to run rough shod over concerns over equity. just in order to focus on whatever could claim to be efficient / effective!! as well unfortunately the same could be said about bankers’ running similarly rough shod over the economy. in ways that allowed them to promote a business model called, wait for it, securitization!! in short we have become a destabilizing inequitable nation primarily due to the wrong way those who define merit have made rules that don’t fit the facts. and if you don’t believe that then explain at least to yourself how a recent president was known as a master builder, that nonetheless literally got financed by a money laundering bank!!

  9. Crime families like the Sacklers should all be in prison and their assets from their crimes should be forfeited to the government.

    1. 100% they should be in jail but they’ve bought off too many politicians and whoever gets in their way.

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