These WhatsApp Messages Show the Opioid Crisis Was Just a Big PR Headache for the Sackler Family

September 16, 2019: FILE: Purdue Pharma filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York Sunday as part of its framework for settling litigation with multiple states and governments. PICTURED: September 12, 2019, New York, USA: Members of P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) and Truth Pharm staged a protest on September 12, 2019 outside Purdue Pharma headquarters in Stamford, over their recent controversial opioid settlement. Participants dropped hundreds of prescription bottles of OxyContin while holding tombstones with the names of opioids casualties and banners reading ''Shame on Sackler'' and ''200 Dead Each Day' (Credit Image: © Erik McGregor/ZUMA Wire)

The Sackler family is known for their company, Purdue Pharma, and its well-documented role in the devastating opioid crisis. They profited with billions in corporate and family gains from their highly addictive and overprescribed painkiller OxyContin. As their role in the opioid epidemic became public, lawsuits mounted, and the Sacklers grappled with its loss of public stature, family members sought to ensure that the considerable donations they made to museums and other arts institutions around the world would buy them public support and credibility amongst the upper crust of society. In recent years, as that support began to erode, family members strategized about how to coordinate public responses and PR strategies.

Read more at Mother Jones.