纽约时报 摧毁阿片类药物之际 普渡制药家族嗅到了新的商机(1)（在线收听）

In Devastation of Opioids: Family Spied New Market

摧毁阿片类药物之际 普渡制药家族嗅到了新的商机

By Danny Hakim, Roni Caryn Rabin and William Rashbaum

文/丹尼·哈基姆，罗尼·卡琳·拉宾，威廉·拉什保姆

The Sacklers had a new plan.

萨克勒家族有了新计划。

It was 2014, and the company the family had controlled for two generations, Purdue Pharma,

那是2014年，因为公司高度上瘾的阿片类止痛药奥施康定的营销连年遭受调查，官司不断，

had been hit with years of investigations and lawsuits over its marketing of the highly addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin,

萨克勒家族经营了两代人的“普渡制药”遭到了重创，

at one point pleading guilty to a federal felony and paying more than $600 million in criminal and civil penalties.

还一度承认犯有联邦重罪，并支付了6亿多美元的刑事和民事罚款。

But as the country’s addiction crisis worsened, the Sacklers spied another business opportunity.

然而，随着美国毒瘾危机的恶化，萨克勒家族发现了另一个商机。

They could increase their profits by selling treatments for the very problem their company had helped to create: addiction to opioids.

他们可以一边助长阿片类药物成瘾这一问题，一边出售治疗阿片类药物成瘾的药物来提高利润。

Details of the effort, named Project Tango, have come to light in lawsuits filed by the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York.

这一项目，项目名为“探戈计划”，的细节已经在马萨诸塞州和纽约州检察长提出的多起诉讼中曝光了。

Together, the cases lay out the extensive involvement of a family

这些案件共同揭示了萨克勒家族的累累罪行：

that has largely escaped personal legal consequences for Purdue Pharma’s role

过去二十年里，阿片类药物泛滥让无数人因为服用过量付出了生命的代价，

in an epidemic that has led to hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths in the past two decades.

尽管普渡制药对此脱不了干系，萨克勒家族的人却逃脱了相关的法律后果。

The filings cite numerous records, emails and other documents

这些文件引用了大量录音、电子邮件及其他资料，

showing that members of the family continued to push aggressively to expand the market for OxyContin and other opioids for years

它们纷纷显示，尽管该公司在2007年的一次认罪协议中承认，它歪曲了毒品的成瘾性和滥用的可能性，

after the company admitted in a 2007 plea deal that it had misrepresented the drug’s addictive qualities and potential for abuse.

但那以后的多年里，该家族的成员仍在积极扩大奥施康定等阿片类药物的市场。

The business potential of adding addiction treatment to the mix was illustrated in internal company charts and diagrams.

公司内部的图表显示了将成瘾治疗纳入其治疗方案的潜在商机。

"Pain treatment and addiction are naturally linked,"

“疼痛治疗和成瘾之间有着自然的联系，”

one Project Tango document, included in the New York complaint, said.

纽约的诉状所包含的一份“探戈计划”文件里写道。

It depicted a big blue funnel.

文件里还画了一个蓝色的大漏斗（来说明二者的关系）。

The fat end was labeled "pain treatment"; the narrow end was labeled "opioid addiction treatment."

漏斗宽大的一端被画上了“疼痛治疗”的标记；细窄的一端则画上了“阿片类药物成瘾治疗”的标记。

The company, the document said, could make money at both ends of the funnel as an "end-to-end pain provider."

该文件称，作为“端到端的痛苦制造者”，无论是哪一端，公司都可以获利。

Dr. Kathe Sackler, one of the eight family members sitting on Purdue’s board,

凯特·塞克勒博士是普渡制药董事会的八名家族成员之一，

instructed employees to devote "immediate attention" to the effort,

马萨诸塞州的案件存档的一封电子邮件显示，

according to an email included in the Massachusetts filing.

她曾指示员工“立即投入”“探戈计划”。

The two lawsuits are part of a burst of recent litigation that has taken aim at the Sacklers,

这两起诉讼还只是近期集体爆发的一系列诉讼之冰山一角，

a far-flung billionaire family that has a network of trusts and companies in the United States and abroad.

这些诉讼都将矛头指向了势力庞大，国内外都有托拉斯和分公司的亿万富翁家族——萨克勒家族。

Their philanthropic gifts have built namesake wings

该家族不仅用慈善捐赠成立了同名的慈善网络，

housing the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and oriental antiquities at the Louvre in Paris,

收藏了纽约大都会艺术博物馆的丹都尔神庙和巴黎卢浮宫的东方古董，

as well as a library at the University of Oxford and a scientific institute at Columbia University.

还给牛津大学捐了一个图书馆，给哥伦比亚大学捐了一个科学研究所。