2026年4月24日T14:02:30.698Z / 路透社
玛丽·安妮·布兰顿手持母亲塔米·布兰顿的照片，后者死于阿片类药物使用。摄于美国亚利桑那州皮奥里亚，2026年4月15日。路透社/凯特琳·奥哈拉 购买授权，将在新标签页打开
4月24日（路透社）——据玛丽·安妮·布兰顿称，塔米·布兰顿的生活在服用最初为治疗偏头痛开具的阿片类药物数年后彻底崩塌。她表示，这些药物让母亲变得孤僻、失业，与家人疏远。
数十年来，多名医疗人员为塔米开具了阿片类药物处方——在某两年期间，她平均每月收到200多片药物——后来一名法医得出结论，羟考酮和缓释吗啡，再加上酒精和抗焦虑药物，导致了她58岁时的意外死亡，该事件发生于2017年。
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当普渡制药在2019年申请破产保护时，布兰顿认为母亲的情况符合获得赔偿的条件。普渡制药的止痛药奥施康定被广泛指责为推动阿片类药物危机的元凶，该公司承认存在不当行为，并承诺向受害者提供赔偿。
尽管这场危机相关的诉讼已产生超过570亿美元的和解金——大部分承诺拨付给州和地方政府——但普渡的和解协议是唯一一项为阿片类药物受害者预留大额专项资金的主要协议，约8.65亿美元将专门用于这些个人。
该基金是阿片类药物危机受害者获得任何赔偿的最后也是最佳机会。曾经针对几乎所有主要阿片类药物制造商、分销商和连锁药店的大规模诉讼基本已结束，不会再有类似的个人受害者基金出现。
对布兰顿和其他许多人而言，这一承诺正在落空。路透社分析了六年来积累的大量破产记录，包括数百份法律文件、100多份寻求赔偿的民众来信，以及对八名受害者和知情律师的采访。该和解协议曾被公司和原告律师誉为受害者的胜利，但路透社的调查显示，漫长而艰难的破产程序最终为许多试图符合赔偿资格的人设置了令人生畏的障碍。
布兰顿是可能无法从该协议中获得任何赔偿的人之一，因为她无法提供文件证明普渡制药——而非仿制药竞争对手——生产了她或其亲属服用的药物。许多人在赔偿程序启动时无需提交文件即可提出索赔，多年后才发现自己所需的记录已被销毁。
要求受害者证明他们服用了普渡制药生产的阿片类药物，在事隔多年后往往很难满足。医生的病历通常只会列出开具的药物名称，而非生产商。保险公司通常会为节省成本而让患者使用仿制药。药房可能会在不同时期更换供应商，而且在许多州，药房、医生、医院和保险公司都没有义务保留记录超过数年。
“对我来说，普渡是否生产了母亲的特定处方药物无关紧要——这场混乱归根结底是他们造成的，”布兰顿说道。普渡一直宣称它们的药物安全且不会成瘾。普渡为“所有人”创造了这个烂摊子。
拥有普渡制药的萨克勒家族成员被要求置评。普渡制药多次置评请求均遭拒绝。
数十亿资金，但属于谁？
文件要求被纳入普渡制药与债权人协商的破产计划，这反映了该公司长期以来的立场：仅应对可直接追溯至其产品的伤害承担责任。
受害者及其律师表示，普渡制药及其萨克勒家族所有者应承担广泛责任，他们通过激进且具有误导性的营销手段推动处方止痛药的广泛使用，包括仿制药，导致许多患者后来转向非法毒品，从而引发了阿片类药物泛滥的危机。
普渡制药曾两次就与奥施康定营销相关的联邦刑事指控认罪，承认其误导监管机构、医生和患者关于成瘾风险，并采取非法手段提高阿片类药物销售额。
当该公司根据第11章申请破产时，那些声称其阿片类药物对其造成伤害的人成为了该案的债权人，与起诉该公司的州、城市和其他政府属于同一法律类别。
2021年3月，普渡制药推出了最初的破产计划，公司董事会主席史蒂夫·米勒称其“具有历史意义”，并表示该计划将“通过向全国社区和个人提供急需的资源，对公共健康产生极其积极的影响”。
普渡制药鼓励个人提出索赔。截至2021年9月的截止日期，已有近14万人提交了申请，他们填写了一份七页的表格，无需提供详细文件。一些索赔由代理多名客户的律师提交，但也有许多索赔由深陷毒瘾或无力聘请律师的人自行提交。
普渡的破产程序随后拖延了数年，陷入上诉泥潭，最终上诉至美国最高法院。和解协议是通过秘密调解会议闭门谈判达成的，作为这场复杂破产程序的一部分，该程序产生了超过9000份法庭文件。
2025年5月，距离索赔截止日期已过去近四年，一名被任命管理该基金的受托人首次要求人们提供文件，证明普渡制药生产了造成其伤害的药物。他设定了60天的截止期限。这一漫长的拖延使得医生、药房或保险公司更难提供所需文件，因为这些机构通常只需保留记录数年。
该计划的早期版本允许没有处方记录的人签署宣誓书，声明自己曾使用该药物，即可获得3500美元的赔偿。根据法庭文件，持有记录且伤害更严重的人最多可获得48000美元赔偿。但在上诉程序结束后，修改后的和解协议仅向持有记录的人开放赔偿。这一变更并未在法庭上公开讨论，普罗Publica是在周四发表的一篇报道中首次披露这一细节的。
曾代表约3万名受害者的律师埃德·奈格表示，原告律师曾试图尽可能放宽个人所需提供的证据要求，但在与其他协商破产和解协议的律师谈判时，对方要求索赔者提供与诉讼所需类似的证据。“我们无法做到无需处方就能获得赔偿，而我们的选择要么是彻底推翻和解协议，要么接受我们能够争取到的让步。”
奈格表示，尽管存在缺陷，普渡的和解方案仍比传统诉讼更容易获得赔偿。针对普渡制药或萨克勒家族的个人诉讼可能需要数年时间，耗费大量资金，且需要更详细的证据，还无法保证胜诉。从未有人成功就个人阿片类药物成瘾起诉萨克勒家族或普渡制药。
尽管如此，在纽约州怀特普莱恩斯负责监督普渡破产案的美国地区法官肖恩·莱恩已经驳回了超过40%的索赔申请。
即使是那些索赔申请获得批准的人，预计获得的赔偿也相对有限。普渡制药在12月估计，符合条件的个人最多可获得约8000美元或16000美元，具体取决于阿片类药物的处方时长。这些数字只是估算，如果最终符合文件要求的索赔者减少，赔偿总额将在更少的人之间分配，每人获得的金额可能会有所上升。
文书踪迹，死胡同
普渡制药以MS Contin的名称销售缓释吗啡，后来又以奥施康定的名称销售缓释羟考酮——布兰顿表示，母亲数十年来大量服用的正是这些药物。她说，她知道母亲服用了一些普渡制药生产的药片，但无法证明母亲服用的吗啡或羟考酮是普渡生产的。普渡制药研发并首次销售了这两种药物，但许多其他公司后来获得了销售仿制药的批准。
母亲去世后，布兰顿开始搜寻医生、医院和药房的记录以支持她的索赔，但她说大部分所需信息要么已不复存在，要么从一开始就没有被记录下来。布兰顿表示，塔米的主治医生依法销毁了她的病历，而她获取的医院记录通常不会注明生产商。她也无法从亚利桑那州的医疗补助计划中获取记录，该计划支付了母亲大部分的处方费用，因为在近亲身份证明和隐私规则方面存在文件障碍。
普渡制药表示，它在文件要求方面采取了灵活的态度，接受包括处方记录、其他合格文件中提及的普渡阿片类药物，或药瓶照片在内的一系列证据。在1月份的一份法庭文件中，该公司将其要求描述为“灵活且远低于诉讼中原告所需提供的举证责任”。
59岁的马萨诸塞州居民米歇尔·卡波齐-波洛克的丈夫在多年使用阿片类药物后去世，当她得知可以用药瓶作为索赔证据时笑了起来。“我又不会保存16年的处方瓶，”她在一次采访中说道。
卡波齐-波洛克表示，她被告知索赔申请被驳回，因为她没有回应去年夏天发送给她丈夫的文件要求，而此时距离她丈夫去世已经过去了三年。
“我需要投入多少时间、精力和金钱，才能走到最后却被他们一句‘不，驳回’打发？”
束手无策
今年1月，普渡制药向破产法院申请驳回超过5.7万名未回应受托人2025年5月文件要求的人的索赔申请，数百名受害者向法院寄信抗议。
他们的信件不仅描述了获取记录的困难，还描述了他们对和解协议运作方式的基本困惑。
“我束手无策，不知道该怎么办，”西弗吉尼亚州赫顿斯维尔惩教所的囚犯特里·休斯在2月20日给破产法院的一封信中写道。休斯说，他配药的药房多年前就关门了。
41岁的纽约州雷德胡克居民迈克尔·加利波在提出索赔近六年后，于今年1月收到了一封主题为“普渡制药LP等，案号19-23649 对无依据索赔的综合抗辩”的电子邮件。
加利波与阿片类药物成瘾抗争了近二十年，2007年因手腕骨折服用止痛药后上瘾，曾因贩毒入狱，如今为正在康复的成瘾者提供咨询。
直到他翻到17101页PDF附件的第3024页，他才看到：“索赔人未提供信息证实其索赔。”
在一次采访中，加利波参加了2月26日在怀特普莱恩斯举行的法庭听证会，他说他曾试图向负责此案的法官莱恩辩称，和解协议的文件要求过于严格。莱恩打断了他，转向其他发言者，其中包括数十名通过Zoom加入的人。
在听证会上，法官承认许多人表达的挫败感——官僚主义的复杂性，以及普通受害者在这个过程中缺乏指导或救济途径的感觉。尽管如此，他还是同意了普渡制药的请求，驳回了近5.7万份索赔申请中的绝大多数。
莱恩拒绝置评。
路透社通过电话旁听了此次听证会，这是今年春夏计划举行的几场听证会之一，法院将审议是否驳回剩余的数万份索赔申请。
并非所有人都会被拒之门外。弗吉尼亚州里士满47岁的吉尔·西乔维茨的双胞胎兄弟斯科特于2017年因过量用药去世，她说她有记录显示斯科特被开具了奥施康定，预计有资格获得赔偿。她说斯科特一直 meticulous 地记录自己服用的药物，她的家人在他去世后聘请了一名调查员，并保存了标注普渡制药为生产商的药瓶——她说这是许多家庭都不具备的优势。“我认为普通的成瘾者不会，你知道，保存大量的记录和他们服用的所有东西的电子表格，”西乔维茨说道。“他们只是在努力生存。”
由迪特里希·克瑙特在纽约报道；亚历克西亚·加拉姆法尔维、艾米·史蒂文斯和克劳迪娅·帕森斯编辑
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After waiting years for justice, many Purdue opioid victims are defeated — by paperwork
2026-04-24T14:02:30.698Z / Reuters
Mary Anne Blanton holds a photograph of her mother Tammy Blanton, who died of opioid use, in Peoria, Arizona, U.S., April 15, 2026. REUTERS/Caitlin O’Hara Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
April 24 (Reuters) – Tammy Blanton’s life unraveled after years of taking opioids initially prescribed for migraines, according to her daughter Mary Anne, who says the drugs left her mother isolated, unemployed and estranged from her family.
Tammy was given opioid prescriptions by multiple providers for decades — receiving more than 200 pills a month on average during one two-year period — and a medical examiner later concluded that oxycodone and extended‑release morphine, along with alcohol and anti-anxiety drugs, contributed to her accidental death at age 58 in 2017.
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When Purdue Pharma sought bankruptcy protection in 2019, Blanton believed her mother’s story would qualify her for compensation. Purdue, whose painkiller OxyContin has been widely blamed for fueling the opioid crisis, acknowledged misconduct and pledged to compensate those harmed.
While lawsuits over the crisis have generated more than $57 billion in settlements — mostly pledged to state and local governments — Purdue’s deal is the only major agreement to set aside a substantial sum for individuals harmed by opioids, with about $865 million earmarked for them.
The fund represents the last and best chance for victims of the opioid crisis to receive any compensation. The sprawling litigation that once targeted nearly every major opioid manufacturer, distributor and pharmacy chain is largely over, and no comparable fund for individuals is coming.
For Blanton and many others, that promise is now slipping away. Reuters analyzed the vast bankruptcy record built over six years, including hundreds of legal filings, more than 100 letters from people seeking compensation, and interviews with eight victims and lawyers close to the case. The deal was hailed by both the company and the plaintiffs’ lawyers as a victory for victims, but the news agency’s examination shows how the long, grinding bankruptcy wound up creating daunting hurdles for many trying to qualify for compensation.
Blanton is among those who may receive nothing from the deal because they cannot produce records proving Purdue — and not a generic competitor — made the pills they or their relatives were prescribed. Many individuals were able to file claims without documentation when the process began, only to learn years later that records they needed had been destroyed.
The requirement that victims prove they took a Purdue-manufactured opioid can be very difficult to meet years later. Doctors’ records typically list the drug prescribed, not the manufacturer. Insurance companies often steer patients toward generics to save money. Pharmacies can switch suppliers over time, and in many states, neither they nor doctors, hospitals nor insurers are required to retain records for more than a few years.
“To me, it’s irrelevant whether Purdue manufactured her specific prescription — it ultimately came from them,” Blanton said. Purdue told “everybody that they were safe and not addictive. They created this mess.”
Members of the Sackler family, which owned Purdue, referred to the company for comment. Purdue declined multiple requests for comment.
BILLIONS, BUT FOR WHOM?
The documentation requirement was embedded in the bankruptcy plan Purdue negotiated with its creditors, reflecting its long-standing position that it should be held liable only for harms directly traceable to its products.
Victims and their lawyers say Purdue and its Sackler family owners should be held broadly responsible for igniting an opioid epidemic through aggressive and misleading marketing that drove widespread use of prescription painkillers, including generics, with many patients later turning to illegal drugs.
Purdue has twice pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges related to its marketing of OxyContin, admitting it misled regulators, doctors and patients about addiction risks and engaged in illegal practices to boost opioid sales.
When the company filed for Chapter 11, people who said they had been harmed by its opioid pills became creditors in its case — placed in the same legal category as states, cities and other governments that had sued the company.
In March 2021, when Purdue introduced its initial bankruptcy plan, Steve Miller, chairman of the company’s board of directors, called it “historic” and said it would have “a profoundly positive impact on public health by directing critically‑needed resources to communities and individuals nationwide.”
Purdue encouraged individuals to file claims. Almost 140,000 people did so by the September 2021 deadline, filling out a seven‑page form that did not require detailed documentation. Some claims were filed by lawyers representing many clients, but many were submitted by people struggling with addiction or unable to afford a lawyer.
Purdue’s bankruptcy then dragged on for years, becoming entangled in appeals that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The settlement was negotiated behind closed doors, through confidential mediation sessions, as part of a complex bankruptcy that produced more than 9,000 court filings.
In May 2025, nearly four years after the deadline for filing claims had passed, a trustee appointed to administer the fund requested for the first time that people produce records proving that Purdue had manufactured the drug that caused their harm. He set a deadline of 60 days. The long delay made it more likely that the requested documents would no longer be available from doctors, pharmacies or insurers, which generally only need to retain records for a few years.
An earlier version of the plan would have allowed people without prescription records to qualify for a $3,500 payment if they signed a sworn affidavit saying they had used the drug. People with records and more serious harms could qualify for up to $48,000, according to court filings. But after the appeals process, the reworked deal limited payouts only to people who had records. The change was not discussed openly in court, which ProPublica was the first to report in a piece published Thursday.
Ed Neiger, an attorney who helped represent a group of about 30,000 victims, said plaintiffs’ lawyers sought to make the requirements about what proof individuals needed to provide as flexible as possible, but ran up against demands from other lawyers negotiating the bankruptcy settlement that claimants provide proof similar to what would be required in a lawsuit. ”We couldn’t get it to a point where you could get recovery without a prescription. And the option was either, you know, blow up the settlement or take the concessions that you were able to extract.”
Despite its shortcomings, the Purdue settlement offers an easier path to compensation than traditional litigation, Neiger said. Individual lawsuits against Purdue or the Sackler family would likely have taken years, cost significant sums and required far more detailed proof, with no assurance of success. No individual has ever successfully sued the Sacklers or Purdue over a personal opioid addiction.
Nevertheless, more than 40% of the claims filed have already been rejected by U.S. District Judge Sean Lane in White Plains, New York, who is overseeing Purdue’s bankruptcy.
Even for those whose claims will be approved, recoveries are expected to be relatively modest. Purdue estimated in December that eligible individuals could receive about $8,000 or $16,000, depending on how long opioids were prescribed. Those figures are estimates, and they could rise if fewer claimants ultimately meet the documentation requirements, since the pool of money would be divided among fewer people.
PAPER TRAIL, DEAD ENDS
Purdue sold extended-release morphine under the name MS Contin and later extended-release oxycodone under the name OxyContin — the same drugs Blanton said her mother took in vast quantities over decades. She said in an interview that she knows her mother took some Purdue-manufactured pills, but could not prove that Purdue made the morphine or oxycodone her mother took. Purdue developed and first marketed both drugs, but many other companies later won approval to sell generic versions.
After her mother’s death, Blanton began searching for records from doctors, hospitals and pharmacies to support her claim, but said much of the information required either no longer exists or was never recorded in the first place. Tammy’s primary care physician had legally destroyed her records, Blanton said, and hospital records she obtained often did not identify the manufacturer. She was also unable to obtain records from Arizona’s Medicaid program, which paid for most of her mother’s prescription, because of documentation hurdles tied to proof of next‑of‑kin status and privacy rules.
Purdue says it has taken a flexible approach to documentation, accepting a range of evidence including prescription records, references to Purdue opioids in other qualifying documents, or photographs of prescription bottles. In a January court filing, the company described its requirements as “flexible and far less onerous” than the proof a plaintiff would need in a lawsuit.
Michele Capozzi‑Pollock, a 59-year-old Massachusetts resident whose husband died after years of opioid use, laughed when she was told pill bottles could be used as proof of a claim. “Like I’m going to save 16 years’ worth of prescription bottles,” she said in an interview.
Capozzi-Pollock said she was told the claim would be denied because she did not respond to the documentation request sent last summer and addressed to her husband three years after his death.
“How much time do I put towards this, and energy and money, just to get to the end and then have them say, ‘No, denied’?”
“AT A LOSS”
When Purdue in January asked the bankruptcy court to expunge more than 57,000 claims from people who did not respond to the trustee’s May 2025 request for documentation, hundreds of victims sent letters to the court in protest.
Their letters describe not only difficulty obtaining records, but basic confusion about how the settlement works.
“I am at a loss and do not know what to do,” wrote Terry Hughes, an inmate at Huttonsville Correctional Center in West Virginia, in a letter to the bankruptcy court dated February 20. Hughes said the pharmacy where he filled opioid prescriptions had closed years ago.
Michael Galipeau, a 41-year-old resident of Red Hook, New York, received an email in January with the subject line: “Purdue Pharma L.P., et al., Case No. 19-23649 Omnibus Claims Objection to Unsubstantiated Claims,” almost six years after filing his claim.
Galipeau, who has struggled with opioid addiction for nearly two decades, became dependent on painkillers prescribed for a broken wrist in 2007, served time in prison for dealing drugs, and now counsels people recovering from addiction.
It wasn’t until he reached page 3,024 of a 17,101-page PDF attachment that he saw the words: “Claimant failed to provide information to substantiate claim.”
In an interview, Galipeau, who attended a February 26 court hearing in White Plains, said he tried to argue to Lane, the judge overseeing the case, that the settlement’s documentation requirements were too restrictive. Lane cut him off and moved on to other speakers, including dozens who joined by Zoom.
During the hearing, the judge acknowledged the frustration many people expressed — over bureaucratic complexity and a sense that the process had left ordinary victims without guidance or recourse. Still, he agreed to Purdue’s request to dismiss nearly all of the 57,000 claims.
Lane declined to comment.
The hearing, which Reuters listened to by phone, was one of several scheduled for this spring and summer as the court considers whether to dismiss the tens of thousands of remaining claims.
Not everyone will be shut out. Jill Cichowicz, a 47‑year‑old Richmond, Virginia resident who lost her twin brother Scott to an overdose in 2017, said she has records showing he was prescribed OxyContin and expects to qualify for a payment. She said Scott kept meticulous notes about the drugs he was taking and that her family hired an investigator and saved pill bottles listing Purdue as the manufacturer after his death — advantages she said many families lack. “I don’t think the average person that’s battling addiction is keeping, you know, copious records and Excel spreadsheets of everything they’re taking,” Cichowicz said. “I think they’re just trying to survive.”
Reporting by Dietrich Knauth, in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Amy Stevens and Claudia Parsons
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