Opioids have killed 600,000 Americans. The Sacklers just got off scot-free | Chris McGreal

A bankruptcy court gave members of the pharma family immunity from further civil suits. They don't have to admit wrongdoing - and they may end up richer than they started

Corporate money has a powerful and malign influence on so many aspects of American life. But even by that low standard, events this week in a New York bankruptcy court are shocking. The legal system has effectively allowed one of the country's richest families to buy its way out of accountability for what a White House commission called America's national nightmare" of mass opioid addiction.

On Wednesday, the court approved a deal for the dissolution of the opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma, which kicked off the opioid epidemic two decades ago with its illegal drive to sell a high-strength painkiller, OxyContin. Purdue's owners, members of two branches of the now-notorious Sackler family, are estimated to have made more than $10bn from the drug - even as the opioid crisis claimed more than 600,000 lives, with the toll climbing higher by the year.