flâneur

How McKinsey, the World’s Most Elite Consulting Firm, Helped Turbocharge America’s Opioid Epidemic

jacobin.com · 397 words · saved by 1 readers

McKinsey & Company’s lethal role in the opioid epidemic may be shocking, but it should come as no surprise. The company is a citadel of America’s amoral capitalist elite, whose only loyalty has always been to profit. Older and bigger than its major rivals, McKinsey & Company is widely considered the gold standard in management consultancy — reportedly serving more than two thousand institutions worldwide and advising many of the world’s most powerful governments and corporations. New issue coming soon. Subscribe to our print edition today. Last month, the pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to charges related to the sale and marketing of the painkiller OxyContin. Even by the standards of corporate malpractice, the company’s behavior, as detailed in a now-concluded federal investigation, is almost too sickening for words. Facing declining sales, it employed every tactic imaginable to skirt public health regulations and ensure that its flagship painkiller was sold and distr

Last month, the pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to charges related to the sale and marketing of the painkiller OxyContin. Even by the standards of corporate malpractice, the company’s behavior, as detailed in a now-concluded federal investigation, is almost too sickening for words. Facing declining sales, it employed every tactic imaginable to skirt public health regulations and ensure that its flagship painkiller was sold and distributed as widely as possible: from aggressively marketing the highly addictive drug to offering kickbacks to doctors and defrauding federal…

related reading