a book that you re ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! purdue pharma fighting the judge s order to make public the details of a lawsuit. it s not just the company, but the family behind that company that is part of the lawsuit. their attorneys are saying if these documents that they want released that they don t want released are released it could expose trade secrets. cnn s miguel marquez has more. the allegations are pretty astonishing in how the company, the family knew the problems of
fortune from purdue pharma. it wasn t until the 1990s in its production of oxyconton that the family made billions. the state of massachusetts wants these unredacted documents released. purdue fighting it. mass appellate judge could decide as early as today. certainly by tomorrow we will know whether the documents are out there and have a much better sense of how this travesty just happened and destroyed parts of the country. much more clarity coming very soon. that lawsuit is far from over even when that happens. thank you. coming up for us, as several 2020 democratic contenders are pushing progressive policies like medicare for all, the former democratic governor of a key primary state says it is time for a more moderate candidate to jump in. he ll be here next.
the drug and still were aggressively marketing. this is the claim in many lawsuits that the family and the company are now facing and that is why the company wants to keep all of these documents under wrap. the family owns purdue pharma and estimated worth of $13 billion. in 2017 there are more than 47,000 opioid linked drug fatalities in the u.s. members of the sackler family were paid more than $4 billion between 2008 and 2016. the other piece of the story says the journal saw unredacted documents in the case is that sales as they slumped purdue pharma looked for new ways to make money.
purdue fapharma considered branching into the treatment business as the company was under fire for the contribution to the opioid crisis itself. the lawsuit names eight members of the sackler family as well as the company and current and former executives. the family did not respond to the wall street journal but purdue did by taking out of context snippets from tens of millions of documents. the complaint filed by the massachusetts attorney general is riddled with inaccurate allegations. 36 states in more than 1,500 cities and counties around the country have sued purdue pharma. one multistate federal lawsuit in 2007 settled for $600 million as part of the plea deal. purdue was accused of misleading and defrauding physicians and consumers with regards to how addictive it is. the sackler family made its