While thousands of Americans were dying each year from the opioid epidemic, driven by drugs like Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin, McKinsey consultants were advising Purdue to “turbocharge” sales of its lethal painkiller.
And they did.
So while Purdue was peddling death to prescribing doctors, and their product was addicting and murdering helpless sufferers of pain, Purdue—on McKinsey’s advice—was falsely insisting OxyContin was nonaddictive, just to pump up their enormous drug sale profits.
But now, the chickens have finally come home to roost—and boy, are they angry!
McKinsey “knew the risks and dangers” of OxyContin, but went ahead and worked with Purdue to increase sales of their lethal product anyway.
McKinsey has agreed to pay $650 million to federal authorities to avoid further criminal action. As part of the agreement, it must fork over the $93 million it made by advising Purdue on how to sell more of its deadly drug to addicted users. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), the settlement “marks the first time a management consulting firm has been held criminally responsible for advice resulting in the commission of a crime by a client.”
But for McKinsey, it’s just pocket change; the firm is estimated to have a value of between $10 and $20 billion.
Think they knew that what they were doing was wrong? Of course they did. They just didn’t care.
Prosecutors stated that McKinsey “knew the risks and dangers” of OxyContin, but went ahead and worked with Purdue to increase sales of their lethal product anyway. In other words, they didn’t care how many people they helped kill, as long as that sweet green river of money kept rolling in.
Further, Purdue, aided by McKinsey, pushed doctors to write prescriptions that “were not for a medically accepted indication, were unsafe, ineffective and medically unnecessary, and that were often diverted for uses that lacked a legitimate medical purpose,” according to court filings.
In addition to the fine, “the largest civil recovery” of its kind, according to the DOJ, McKinsey former partner Martin Elling has agreed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice for deleting over 100 documents about McKinsey’s work with Purdue after becoming aware of investigations into the now-disgraced pharma firm.
“McKinsey understood that part of its role was to empower those within Purdue Pharma’s senior management who favored a more aggressive approach to sales,” federal prosecutors wrote.
Now, of course, McKinsey public relations shills have gone “all apologies” in a public statement from the firm, which reads: “We are deeply sorry for our past client service to Purdue Pharma and the actions of a former partner who deleted documents related to his work for that client.
“We should have appreciated the harm opioids were causing in our society and we should not have undertaken sales and marketing work for Purdue Pharma. This terrible public health crisis and our past work for opioid manufacturers will always be a source of profound regret for our firm.”
Seriously?
They only put out the release after the feds took them to task for aiding and abetting a murderous pharmaceutical company.
McKinsey was also under investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform for potential ethical and legal violations because, while working for Purdue, the firm was also working for the Food and Drug Administration—the very agency charged with protecting Americans against companies like Purdue—without informing the FDA of its outrageous conflict of interest.
While their customers were dying, Purdue Pharma made more than $35 billion.
The committee found that, according to its chairperson, Carolyn Maloney, “at the same time the FDA was relying on McKinsey’s advice to ensure drug safety and protect American lives, the firm was also being paid by the very companies fueling the deadly opioid epidemic to help them avoid tougher regulation of these dangerous drugs.”
In response to the investigation, McKinsey said, “We stand behind the positive impact of our work.”
Really? Can you possibly expect anyone to believe that? Shame on you.
The corruption never seems to end: McKinsey was also caught violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing South African officials for contracts, resulting in a fine of over $122 million, as announced by the DOJ last month.
And McKinsey’s practice of serial “double-dipping” has costs for not only American citizens, but to our nation’s veterans as well.
In March, four congressmen sent an outraged letter to Denis McDonough, US Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA), stating that McKinsey provided consulting services to the VA while also representing Purdue.
“It has become increasingly clear that McKinsey’s unprecedented access to VA decision-making, strategy and policy formulation allowed them to exploit their consulting contracts to the benefit of their opioid manufacturer clients and to the detriment of many veterans suffering from injuries sustained during their service,” the letter stated.
The congressmen also noted that McKinsey’s failure to reveal its Purdue conflict of interest to the FDA was “a blatantly unethical practice and, potentially, a violation of federal law.”
Federal agencies “have apparently failed to enforce laws and regulations regarding organizational conflicts of interest, allowing McKinsey to disregard them without any consequences.”
It’s murder-for-profit, plain and simple: Between 1999 and 2018, 450,000 died from opioid overdoses—nearly half a million. And while their customers were dying, Purdue Pharma made more than $35 billion.
McKinsey and Purdue don’t care about the blood they’ve spilled, their role in increasing America’s drug addiction agony or about our nation’s veterans.
What do they care about?
One thing only: money.
And when you ignore every bit of moral or legal responsibility in pursuit of the almighty dollar—at any cost—your actions are unforgivable.
