Gov. Charlie Baker says he supports Attorney General Maura Healey’s decision not to sign on to a tentative opioid crisis settlement reached between a number of states and the Sackler family, which owns Oxycontin maker Purdue Pharma.
“I think the Attorney General is doing the right thing,” Baker said at a press conference in Lakeville Thursday. “I know that the other folks who are involved in this settlement think they are delivering an appropriate level of punishment to the folks at Purdue and in the Sackler family, [but] I don't.”
Twenty-three states and approximately 2,000 local governments agreed to the tentative settlement, which would require the Purdue company to pay $12 billion, with about $3 billion of that coming from the Sackler family. The tentative agreement and expected bankruptcy filing would remove Purdue from the first federal trial over the opioids epidemic, scheduled to begin next month in Ohio.
Healey said she thinks the deal doesn’t go far enough. “The families who were hurt by Purdue and the Sacklers have spoken loud and clear that this case demands real accountability, and I will continue to fight for that,” Healey said in a statement Wednesday. “It’s critical that all the facts come out about what this company and its executives and directors did, that they apologize for the harm they caused, and that no one profits from breaking the law. These families deserve justice.”
Healey sued Purdue Pharma and its executives last year after her office’s investigation revealed that Purdue sales representatives made 150,000 visits to medical offices from 2008 to 2018 and sold 70 million doses of opioids, generating $500 million in revenue. According to the state department of health and human services, nearly 2,000 people in Massachusetts died from opioid-related overdoses from 2000 to 2018.
“The Department of Public Health and other folks worked very hard with the Attorney General to help her build the case against the Sacklers and against Purdue,” Baker said. “There are two things about our suit that are very different; number one, we sued the Sacklers personally in that suit, and number two, I think we're the only state that sued the Sacklers that literally tied drug overdose deaths to Purdue Pharma by name specifically.”
In a statement Wednesday, Purdue Pharma said that it “continues to work with all plaintiffs on reaching a comprehensive resolution to its opioid litigation that will deliver billions of dollars and vital opioid overdose rescue medicines to communities across the country impacted by the opioid crisis.”
Roughly 20 states have sued members of the Sackler family in state courts. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin were among the states saying they were not part of the agreement.
Healey has pledged to continue pursuing legal action against the Sackler family. Baker says it comes down to pursuing justice for people affected by the opioid crisis. “I've probably spent as much time with families who have suffered the wreckage of the opioid epidemic as I've spent with any other community over the course of the last five or six years,” Baker said. “I'm glad the AG didn't settle for that deal.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
