A federal bankruptcy court judge on Friday said he would approve OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma’s latest deal to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids that includes some money for thousands of victims of the epidemic.
The deal overseen by US bankruptcy judge Sean Lane would require some of the multibillionaire members of the semi-reclusive Sackler family who own the company to contribute up to $7bn and give up ownership of the Connecticut-based firm.
The new agreement replaces one the US supreme court rejected last year, finding it would have improperly protected members of the family against future lawsuits. The judge said he would explain his decision in a hearing on Tuesday.
I agree, but exactly zero large media organizations agree as well. Journalistic integrity is bad for business. That said, when a huge corporation is profiting by turning people into addicts and killing them, I have no sympathy. Let the FDA and DEA worry about which opioid deaths are whose fault while the courts lay each and every one at Purdue’s feet. The odds that they deserve it due to some other as-yet undiscovered shenanigans that they’re likely to get away with are as close to 100% as makes no difference.
I agree on journalistic integrity. But isn’t it important to uphold that standard, even if others don’t?
They may deserve it, but it’s by knowing those details that we determine if they do or not.
Because otherwise your position basically becomes ‘If company did thing x and as a result is bad, it’s okay to blame them for thing y and thing z, which they probably had nothing to do with, but we’ve already determined they are bad and therefore they deserve any blame we throw at them justified or not’.
The problem with that is it sets up witch hunts. You are bad, therefore we can blame you for anything we want, and that blame justifies your being treated as bad.
That is why the Constitution mandates due process. And we should uphold that same standard, in our minds and in our positions and in our debates.