Sackler family members have denied wrongdoing, although their company has pleaded guilty twice to federal crimes over their opioid practices. Some opioid deaths have been attributed to Ox圜ontin and other prescription painkillers, though most are from illicit forms of opioids such as heroin and illegally made fentanyl.

Institutions including Britain’s National Portrait Gallery and the Tate galleries have stopped taking the family’s donations due to its role in the opioid crisis, which has been linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. “In a lot of ways it’s a story about denial.”Īmid protests over its role in the opioid business, the Sackler name has been removed in recent years from wings and galleries at institutions including the Louvre in Paris and the Serpentine Gallery in London. “I think in some ways it’s a story about hubris,” he said.

Keefe said it was “a portrait of three generations of one family behaving very badly, but also on a deeper level a story about systems and about impunity.” “Empire of Pain” traces the rise of the family’s fortunes under three doctor brothers and their children, and its downfall in a web of lawsuits and bankruptcy proceedings. A reckoning has come with the revelation that much of that fortune was based on Ox圜ontin, a powerful prescription painkiller that the company developed in the 1990s and marketed aggressively to doctors. Keefe’s book chronicles the billionaire Sackler clan, owner of Purdue Pharma, whose members used their fortune to fund museums and art galleries around the world. Patrick Radden Keefe’s “Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty” was awarded the 50,000 pound ($67,000) Baillie Gifford Prize during a ceremony at London’s Science Museum. LONDON (AP) - A book about a wealthy American family whose actions helped unleash the United States’ opioid epidemic - described by its author as a “story of hubris” - won Britain’s leading nonfiction book prize Tuesday.

A book about a wealthy American family whose actions helped unleash the United States’ opioid epidemic has won Britain’s leading nonfiction book prizeīook about Sackler family and opioid crisis wins UK prizeBy JILL LAWLESSAssociated PressThe Associated PressLONDON

Book about sackler