The Sackler dynasty’s ruthless marketing of painkillers has generated billions of dollars—and millions of addicts.
An addiction specialist said that the Sacklers’ firm, Purdue Pharma, bears the “lion’s share” of the blame for the opioid crisis. Illustration by Ben Wiseman
The north wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a vast, airy enclosure featuring a banked wall of glass and the Temple of Dendur, a sandstone monument that was constructed beside the Nile two millennia ago and transported to the Met, brick by brick, as a gift from the Egyptian government. The space, which opened in 1978 and is known as the Sackler Wing, is also itself a monument, to one of America’s great philanthropic dynasties. The Brooklyn-born brothers Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler, all physicians, donated lavishly during their lifetimes to an astounding range of institutions, many of which today bear the family name: the Sackler Gallery, in Washington; the Sackler Museum, at Harvard; the Sackler Center for Arts Education, at the Guggenheim; the Sackler Wing at the Louvre; and Sackler institutes and facilities at Columbia, Oxford, and a dozen other universities. The Sacklers have endowed professorships and underwritten medical research. The art scholar Thomas Lawton once likened the eldest brother, Arthur, to “a modern Medici.” Before Arthur’s death, in 1987, he advised his children, “Leave the world a better place than when you entered it.” Continue reading
Modern medicine has some good points, for sure, and is great in an emergency, but it’s time we learn that today’s mainstream pharma industry (Modern medicine), with its focus on drugs, radiation and surgery, is at its foundation a Rockefeller creation. But how did the pharma industry come to be so prominent in our modern world? 
A cancer cluster is suspected after the deaths of six police officers in the District 5 unit of the Cincinnati, Ohio Police Department over the course of two years.
Certain celebrities have been associated with specific diseases. For instance, Patrick Swayze will be associated with pancreatic cancer indefinitely. Michael J. Fox represents Parkinson’s disease, and the Marlboro Man ironically represents lung cancer. For those who do not remember, the Marlboro Men were the smoking cowboys who attempted to make filtered cigarettes seem more masculine. The commercials were a huge success, until all of the actors began dying from lung cancer. The demise of the Marlboro Men was publicized heavily by the mainstream media, because it has long been open season against tobacco products, since it became illegal for tobacco companies to fund news shows. 
After decades of doctors hemming and hawing over the risks of gadolinium-based dyes used in enhanced MRIs, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have finally issued a report that acknowledges something that we’ve suspected for a long time. 
Famous holistic author, naturopath and researcher Ann Boroch was found dead in Los Angeles on Thursday, as the community of physicians seeking to operate outside the confines of Big Pharma continues to be decimated. She was 44. 
Ever heard of the 250,000 cotton farmers in central India who took their own lives after being manipulated by promises made by Monsanto? Monsanto claimed to be able to put an end to famine and promised unheard of riches and crop prosperity if the farmers would switch from their conventional farming methods to the use of GM seeds. Many farmers had to borrow money to purchase these seeds, and after several failed harvests, they were left with no income and out of control debt. After going bankrupt from Monsanto’s Ponzi scheme the farmers fell into an endless cycle of depression, hopelessness and despair. It is also believed that, aside from the obvious issue of loss of income, the daily contact with the poisonous pesticides and herbicides also led to the depression these farmers suffered from. They believed the only way out was suicide, many even poisoning themselves with the same pesticides they used to spray on their failed crops. 
Glyphosate usage has gotten so out of control that it’s seemingly taken on a life of its own and is now showing up even in foods that haven’t been directly sprayed, namely the grapes used to make organic wine.
If you want to see just how quickly drugs can plunge a beautiful and thriving city into desolation, look no further than Baltimore. On the surface, the city has plenty to offer, with lots of history, a lovely harbor, diverse entertainment options, and top research and medical facilities. However as opiate addiction has spread throughout the city over the past several years, it has turned it into a place that is no longer befitting of its nickname, Charm City.