<\/p>\n
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday pressed lawmakers to approve legislation that is meant to prevent the Sackler family from avoiding lawsuits related to the opioid crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cCongress has a duty to ensure that there is accountability for this deadly crisis and to prevent bad actors like the Sacklers from evading responsibility when they harm American communities,\u201d Maloney, who chairs the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told reporters during a press call ahead of a hearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must pass the SACKLER Act before the bankruptcy plan is confirmed and the Sackler family will practically get off scot-free,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n
Background:\u00a0<\/strong>The legislation would prevent people who have not filed for bankruptcy from being released from lawsuits brought by states, municipalities or the U.S. government.<\/p>\n Under the current proposal, the Sackler family\u2019s company Purdue Pharma would legally release family members from facing opioid-related lawsuits, while requiring them to pay almost $4.3 billion over 10 years.<\/p>\n During the hearing:\u00a0<\/strong>Republicans called attention to concerns that drug trafficking at the U.S.-Mexico border is contributing to the opioid crisis in the country.<\/p>\n Ranking member Rep.\u00a0James Comer\u00a0(R-Ky.) criticized Maloney for not calling a hearing on the \u201cborder crisis\u201d and fentanyl trafficking, as demanded by GOP members.<\/p>\n \u201cThis hearing misses the point,\u201d he said during his opening statement. \u201cIt\u2019s so focused on the Sackler family that it forgets the ongoing epidemic, affecting millions of Americans each day.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) responded to the remarks saying the Sackler family was at fault, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s not immigrants or China that are drug dealing here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) on...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36151,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36150\/revisions\/36151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}