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<\/a>New York on Thursday sued the billionaire Sackler family behind OxyContin, joining a growing list of state and local governments alleging the family’s company, Purdue Pharma, sparked the nation’s opioid crisis by putting hunger for profits over patient safety.
Jessica Hill\/AP<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
Brian Mann
\nNPR<\/p>\n
New York state Attorney General Letitia James leveled the fiercest legal broadside yet against the Sackler family, owners of the privately-held Purdue Pharma which makes the powerful prescription painkiller Oxycontin.<\/p>\n
A civil suit filed Thursday accuses eight members of the family of personally contributing to the deadly opioid epidemic, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans<\/a> over the last two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n At a press conference, James described the Sacklers as “masterminds” of an illegal scheme that “literally profited off of the suffering and death” of New Yorkers and others around the U.S.<\/p>\n “This lawsuit contains detailed allegations about the Sackler family and their attempt to hide the vast fortunes they collected at the expense of actual lives,” she added.<\/p>\n State officials hope to force the Sacklers to forfeit some of that wealth \u2014 estimated as high as $13 billion,<\/a> according to Forbes<\/em> \u2014 to help pay the cost of curbing the addiction epidemic that still claims more than 130 lives every day.<\/p>\n