評(píng)論
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Books & arts
文藝板塊
Book review
書(shū)評(píng)
Opioids in America
美國(guó)阿片類(lèi)藥物
Bitter pills
讓人更痛苦的藥物
Empire of Pain. By Patrick Radden Keefe.
《痛苦帝國(guó)》。作者：帕特里克·雷登·基夫
At 50,000 overdose deaths a year and rising, America’s opioid crisis has never been worse. What began in the late 1990s as an epidemic of prescription pain-pill abuse morphed into a worse one of illicit heroin and, later, fentanyl. Prosecutors and the public have zeroed in on Purdue Pharma, which introduced the blockbuster drug OxyContin in 1996. Of the colossal revenues it generated, some $13bn was paid to the company’s previously low-profile owners, members of the Sackler family, who have recently sunk from honoured arts patrons to society pariahs.
每年有5萬(wàn)人死于用藥過(guò)量，而且死亡人數(shù)還在上升，美國(guó)的阿片危機(jī)從未像現(xiàn)在這樣糟糕。阿片危機(jī)開(kāi)始于20世紀(jì)90年代末，當(dāng)時(shí)處方止痛藥的濫用情況十分盛行，之后就演變成了更為嚴(yán)重的非法海洛因?yàn)E用，然后是芬太尼濫用。檢察官和公眾將矛頭對(duì)準(zhǔn)了普渡制藥公司，該公司于1996年推出了轟動(dòng)一時(shí)的藥物奧施康定。普渡制藥公司拿出了其創(chuàng)造的巨額收入中的約130億美元支付給低調(diào)的前任公司所有者，即薩克勒家族的成員，他們最近從受人尊敬的藝術(shù)贊助人淪落為社會(huì)渣滓。
Patrick Radden Keefe’s excellent new book tells the story of this now-infamous clan. He traces the empire of the title to Brooklyn in 1920, and a trio of brothers born to Jewish immigrants: Arthur (the eldest and, in Mr Keefe’s telling, the “patriarch”), Raymond and Mortimer. Arthur Sackler’s business acumen and questionable ethical judgment proved lucrative. He in effect invented the field of medical advertising, creating the first family fortune after aggressively marketing the sedatives Librium and Valium to doctors, without a serious study of the addiction risks. A fascination with Chinese artefacts led him to bequeath huge sums to prestigious museums. For decades the Sackler name would primarily be associated with that largesse.
帕特里克·雷登·基夫在新書(shū)中講述了這個(gè)如今臭名昭著的家族的故事。他把痛苦帝國(guó)追溯到了1920年的布魯克林，以及猶太移民所生的三兄弟：亞瑟（長(zhǎng)兄，基夫先生將其描述為“族長(zhǎng)”）、雷蒙德和莫蒂默。事實(shí)證明，亞瑟·薩克勒的商業(yè)頭腦和不正當(dāng)?shù)牡赖屡袛嘧屗嵙舜箦X(qián)。事實(shí)上，亞瑟發(fā)明了醫(yī)療廣告領(lǐng)域，他在沒(méi)有認(rèn)真研究成癮風(fēng)險(xiǎn)的情況下，積極向醫(yī)生推銷(xiāo)鎮(zhèn)定劑利眠寧和安定，并以此創(chuàng)造了第一筆家族財(cái)富。對(duì)中國(guó)藝術(shù)品的迷戀讓他向享有盛譽(yù)的博物館遺贈(zèng)巨款。幾十年來(lái)，薩克勒的名字基本與贈(zèng)款綁定了。
Arthur died in 1987, almost a decade before Purdue, which the brothers had acquired in 1952, began selling OxyContin. By the time that happened, his branch of the family no longer held a stake—facts that its members hope will exonerate them from the taint of the “OxySacklers”. But after a gripping if lengthy account of the patriarch’s career in the first third of his book, Mr Keefe’s view is less forgiving. “So many of the antecedents of the saga of OxyContin could be found in the life of Arthur Sackler,” he concludes.
亞瑟于1987年去世，比普渡制藥公司（薩克勒于1952年收購(gòu)了普渡）開(kāi)始銷(xiāo)售奧施康定早了近10年。奧施康定銷(xiāo)售之時(shí)，薩克勒家族成員已經(jīng)不再持有普渡公司的股份，薩克勒家族成員希望憑借這一事實(shí)與“奧施薩克勒”的污點(diǎn)撇清干系。但基夫先是在《痛苦帝國(guó)》中以前三分之一的篇幅對(duì)亞瑟族長(zhǎng)的職業(yè)生涯進(jìn)行了引人入勝而又冗長(zhǎng)的描述，然后他的觀點(diǎn)就沒(méi)有那么寬容了。基夫總結(jié)說(shuō)：“我們?cè)趤喩に_克勒的一生中能夠發(fā)現(xiàn)許多奧施康定誕生的前因。”
For the other two brothers and their descendants, Purdue yielded money beyond even Arthur’s imaginings. “The prescription blizzard will be so deep, dense and white,” Richard Sackler, son of Raymond, promised at the launch party for OxyContin. His words proved all too prophetic. The plan for mass-market opioids was abetted by misleading advertising, which claimed that less than 1% of patients would become addicted, and a vast salesforce incentivised by lucrative commissions.
對(duì)于另外兩兄弟和他們的后代來(lái)說(shuō)，普渡制藥所盈利的錢(qián)甚至超出了亞瑟的想象。雷蒙德的兒子理查德·薩克勒在奧施康定的發(fā)布會(huì)上承諾：“處方藥將像深厚、稠密、雪白的暴風(fēng)雪一樣鋪天蓋地?！笔聦?shí)證明，他的話(huà)非常有預(yù)見(jiàn)性。大規(guī)模銷(xiāo)售阿片類(lèi)藥物的計(jì)劃受到誤導(dǎo)性廣告的推波助瀾，這些廣告聲稱(chēng)只有不到1%的患者會(huì)上癮，而利潤(rùn)豐厚的傭金刺激著龐大的銷(xiāo)售隊(duì)伍。
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