do you have a reference to just how bad they were? I'd like to learn more. This whole sackler thing has been scaring me shitless because as a biochemist thinking about going back into biochemistry, my brain runs around in circles about how badly a small bit of uncertainty could be turned around in circles to screw me over, even if I believed what I did was in the best interest of most people (like what happened to Merck + Vioxx).

Prosecutors have been going after Purdue and the Sackler's for over a decade now. Forty seven states have sued Purdue pharma over the opioid crisis with twenty nine of those states specifically naming members of the Sackler family in the suits. So if you want primary documents, you have more than you can read.

Here's an excerpt from a recent New Yorker article:

The 2007 case was not supposed to end the way it did. For four years, prosecutors in the Western District of Virginia gathered evidence on Purdue, subpoenaing millions of documents. They found a widespread pattern of illegal misconduct in which Purdue systematically misled doctors (and the general public) about the risks associated with OxyContin. In September, 2006, the prosecutors detailed their damning evidence in a hundred-and-twenty-page memo, suggesting that the wrongdoing at Purdue was so pervasive, and so consistent, that it could have been authorized only by the company’s leaders. This memo, an internal government document, was not made public until August, 2019, when the Times published excerpts of it showing that the prosecutors had intended to bring felony charges against three top Purdue executives: Michael Friedman, Howard Udell, and Paul Goldenheim. The full memo, which I have reviewed, describes the Sacklers as “The Family” and notes that the company was owned and controlled by the brothers Mortimer and Raymond Sackler and their heirs. (The heirs of a third Sackler brother, Arthur, sold their interest in the company prior to the introduction of OxyContin.) The company “trained its sales representatives” to use “false and fraudulent” claims about OxyContin, the memo states. The prosecutors noted that the three executives they intended to charge “reported directly to The Family.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-sackler-familys...

Thanks!! The new yorker article is exactly what I was looking for.