All in The Family: Foulkes, Her Uncle Senator Chris Dodd, the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma
GoLocalProv News Team and Josh Fenton
All in The Family: Foulkes, Her Uncle Senator Chris Dodd, the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma
Foulkes’ uncle and maternal grandfather were both U.S. Senators from Connecticut, dominating that state for decades. Purdue Pharma is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.
Both Dodds left the Senate under clouds of ethical violations tied to personal financial gain.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTToday, the Dodd Center, housed at the University of Connecticut, is dedicated to the legacies of Thomas Dodd and Chris Dodd and has been partially funded by the Sackler family.
Foulkes, who is running for governor again in 2026, chaired the Dodd Center for her uncle for nearly 13 years — from September of 2009 to just before she ran for governor for the first time in Rhode Island in 2022. She has refused to answer questions about the relationship between the Dodd Center and the Sackler family. The organization's website has been scrubbed of all references to the relationship with the Sacklers, but GoLocal searched thousands of pages and images of archived versions of the Dodd Center's websites.
If those were the extent of the interrelated connections, that would certainly be interesting and somewhat disturbing, especially regarding the financial relationship between the Dodd Center and the Sacklers, but what GoLocal has investigated is how Foulkes’ uncle, "Uncle Chris" and a close ally to the Sacklers, used his power in the United States Senate to protect Purdue Pharma and its business of pumping out billions of dollars of opioid linked to hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths in the United States.
The opioid crisis has been a killing machine. The CDC says that from 1999 to 2022, nearly 727,000 people died from opioid overdoses, including both prescription and illegal opioids.
Simultaneously to Senator Dodd’s efforts on behalf of the notorious company was the financial gain being driven by Foulkes and CVS, who realized massive revenue and profits from pumping the opioids out. While the pills were being churned out of CVS stores across the country, Foulkes was the President of CVS and Vice President of CVS Pharmacy. In one four-year period, she received more than $21 million in compensation at CVS.
When first running for governor, Foulkes claimed that when she learned of the opioid epidemic, she took action, citing state legislation she worked on in 2015.
In an interview on GoLocalLIVE in January of 2022, Foulkes took no responsibility for her or CVS's role in the opioid epidemic and blamed Purdue Pharma and made one of the first of many false claims about her knowledge and CVS’s role in the epidemic.
“I’m also really angry. I am angry because Purdue Pharma, in particular, lied to all of us, and that, that really makes me angry. You know, all I can say is that as soon as we saw what was going on, we took action, and I feel very strongly about that,” said Foulkes.
Since those comments, CVS agreed to settlement payments in excess of $5 billion.
Further, the recent U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against CVS outlines in a 245-page lawsuit how CVS repeatedly violated federal law to feast on the profits of opioids.
Since the filing of the government's lawsuit against CVS, Foulkes has refused to answer questions from GoLocal.
"Uncle Chris" Dodd Defended Purdue Pharma and Benefited in Funding for the Dodd Center and Campaign Donations
In the early 2000s, it was becoming clear that the Sackler family's Purdue Pharma was driving a massive marketing effort to push Oxycodone to doctors and potential customers.
On February 12, 2002, a critical hearing was held by the United States Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor, and Pensions. Dodd was a senior member of the committee — second only to chairman Ted Kennedy.
As public health experts were raising concerns about the spread of opioids and specifically the role of Purdue Pharma's OxyContin, Dodd voiced at the hearing his “high regard” for Purdue Pharma.
“As I said at the outset in my prepared statement, I represent Purdue Pharma, they are constituents of mine, and I know them well and the people who work there. I have been down there on numerous occasions during my service in the Senate. I have a very, very high regard for them and their employees who work very, very hard producing quality products,” said Dodd.
Dodd added, “I think you have identified here that the problem goes far beyond a company. It is easier to identify a company when you are trying to address this but I think the problem is far more pernicious than the product produced by a single company.”
One of the individuals testifying was a small-town physician named Art Van Zee. He raised concerns at that time, now more than two decades ago, about how his county was being ravaged specifically by Purdue Pharma and its lead product, OxyContin.
Dr. Van Zee warned the Committee in his testimony, “Contrary to what is sometimes portrayed in the media as long term drug addicts switching to the drug du jour, what we have seen for the most part is numerous young people recreationally using OxyContin and then becoming very rapidly addicted. Many of these kids are good kids, good families, with bright, promising futures that are being destroyed in every way by their opioid addiction. Opioids—as derivatives of opium—are the most powerful pain medication—with morphine being most familiar to you. OxyContin addiction is opioid addiction, the same as morphine or heroin addiction and wreaks the same havoc on individuals, families, and communities. It is hard to find a family in Lee County that has not been touched directly or indirectly by this problem of OxyContin abuse. This is a sadly repetitive story for the numerous areas of the country now affected by this from Washington County, Maine to southern Florida.”
You know, Art Van Zee, like Laura Nagel, eventually got shouted down, got ignored. I mean, there was this rather pivotal Senate hearing, where he comes and he pleads with these senators to do something about this drug. And Chris Dodd, the Democratic senator from Connecticut at the time, starts raking him over the coals and sounds like he’s, you know, badgering him with talking points that had been given to him by Purdue Pharma. And lo and behold, when I started looking at campaign finance records and other documents, it turned out that Chris Dodd had met with Purdue Pharma prior to this hearing, and Purdue—and Chris Dodd had gotten a $10,000 contribution from Purdue Pharma shortly afterward. So, Purdue Pharma, you know, was spreading money around and going after its critics and co-opting them throughout this entire period.
This Senate Committee hearing from 2002 has no publicly available video of the hearing, but GoLocal has pulled the official written transcript of the hearing, here is a portion:
SENATOR DODD: But we are talking about illicit use here. How do you address illicit use by going after targeting and promotion of a product that is supposed to be used legally? I do not understand the connection between illegal use and marketing and promotion. I do not see the connection.
DR. VAN ZEE: The connection is that in Southwest Virginia in the 14 counties affected by it, OxyContin was prescribed 600 to 800 percent higher than Virginia and the rest of the country in general. If you have that kind of availability of a drug, you do have a lot of recreational drug use. You have, like we had, 9 percent of our seventh graders having used OxyContin; 25 percent of our 11th graders having used OxyContin.
SENATOR DODD: That is a serious issue but we are kind of missing each other. We are passing in the night here. I am not sure we are talking to each other.
DR. VAN ZEE: Let me try to make the connection. If you know that the area of your country that is having the problems with OxyContin abuse——[Dodd interrupting]
SENATOR DODD: They have a problem with drug addiction. You have a problem of kids who are—it is an OxyContin problem in the sense that they are using that product but there is something far more profound going on here than just the availability through legal channels of a painkiller.
DR. VAN ZEE: Obviously, we do not have all the information here but if you have an area of the country, and perhaps that is our area, that are high prescribers of controlled prescription drugs or opioids and you have a pharmaceutical company that finds out which physicians are most liberal prescribers of opioids and if you couple that with the sales representative force that has lucrative incentives to increase the OxyContin sales or whatever other drug is involved in their territory, I think it is a recipe for commercial success and public health problems.
“In fact, in January of 2002, a Federal judge in Kentucky wrote that the plaintiffs in a motion to impose restrictions on the access to OxyContin had ‘failed to produce any evidence showing that the defendant’s marketing, promotional or distributional practices have ever caused even one tablet of OxyContin to be inappropriately prescribed or diverted,’” said Dodd.
Dodd’s efforts for Purdue Pharma and the pain industry continued and were rewarded, according to a report in the Daily Caller:
Former Sen. Chris Dodd — another Connecticut Democrat — took the second most from the Sacklers and Purdue, raking in more than $85,000, TheDCNF’s analysis found. He served on the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) — a panel that’s now holding hearings on the opioid epidemic — and chaired one of its subcommittees. He also chaired the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee.
Dodd sponsored legislation that called for research on pain in America, and a group tied to Purdue spent $19 million lobbying in favor of the bill, according to a joint investigation by The Associated Press and The Center for Public Integrity. Nearly half the experts recruited to author the resulting 364-page report had pharmaceutical industry ties.
But there was far more.
And, there were even more family connections tied to the pharma industry.
The New York Times reported in 2009 that as Dodd was gearing up to run for another term in the Senate, his close alliances with the pharmaceutical industry was coming under greater scrutiny.
And Dodd’s wife’s ties to the industry only added to the growing controversy.
The New York Times reported in July of 2009:
Over his decades in Congress, Mr. Dodd has raised more than $550,000 from drug company representatives, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
In addition, Mr. Dodd’s wife, Jackie Clegg, was paid nearly $80,000 as a member of the board of Cardiome Pharma Corporation, according to the documents most recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ms. Clegg also holds more than 200,000 shares in Javelin Pharmaceuticals, where she is also a board member.
Colleen Flanagan, a Dodd spokeswoman, said Ms. Clegg consulted an ethics lawyer to see if the board positions posed a conflict of interest given her husband’s Senate role. “Her career is entirely her own,” she added.
During this period, the Sacklers — Raymond and Beverly Sackler — underwrote the “Raymond and Beverly Distinguished Lecture Series” at the Dodd Center.
Raymond Sackler was one of the three brothers who created the massive Purdue Pharma empire. Raymond Sacker and his wife pumped millions into the Dodd Center and UConn as a whole -- a reported $4.5 million.
At the dedication of the Dodd Center on October 15, 1995, UConn President Harry Hartley made sure to thank Dr. Raymond Sackler for his role in the center's development and his role on the Advisory Council.
At the time of his death in 2017, the University of Connecticut published a glowing obituary of Raymond Sackler — for his support of the University.
"Dr. Sackler and his wife Beverly generously supported the University – especially in the arts, human rights, and medical research – for more than 30 years. He received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from UConn in 1998," read the obit.
However, Politico wrote a different story about his legacy.
Politico wrote, “Raymond Sackler was the last of three brothers whose controversial company many blame for unleashing a nationwide plague of addiction and overdose to narcotic painkillers with a pill that made the family one of the wealthiest in America.”
As Foulkes became more involved in the family’s high-profile Dodd Center, Senator Dodd’s relationship with the pharma industry started to become a political liability.
In January 2010, Dodd’s links to the pharmaceutical industry and questionable financing for his homes forced his hand, and he announced he was abandoning his run for reelection.
A sweetheart mortgage deal?
In the summer of 2003, when mortgage rates were at their lowest in 45 years, Sen. Dodd and his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, decided to refinance their two homes (PDF), one in East Haddam, Conn., valued at $500,000, and the other in Washington D.C., valued at $792,000. Like millions of American homeowners, the couple chose Countrywide Financial Corp, the nation's largest independent mortgage lender at the time.
In the summer of 2008, Portfolio magazine published a story alleging that Dodd had received favorable terms in refinancing his homes under a Countrywide VIP program known as "Friends of Angelo," designed to accommodate clients valued by Countrywide's Chief Executive Officer Angelo Mozilo. A follow-up article cited Robert Feinberg, a former loan officer for Countrywide, who said the Dodds had received discounted mortgages on two homes.
The Dodds have repeatedly denied getting a sweetheart deal, pointing to industry analysts and reports that confirm their five-year adjustable rates were in line (PDF) with similar borrowers at the time with excellent credit ratings. Several news organizations including The Washington Post also concluded that the senator's mortgage rates appeared to be at or even above the prevailing rates at the time. Dodd told the Senate Ethics Committee, which opened an investigation after the publication of the Portfolio article, that he had never met Angelo Mozilo and that when he became aware he was receiving VIP treatment he inqired and believed it was part of a program that offered a higher quality of customer service.
In August 2009, the Senate Ethics Committee wrote Dodd with their findings (PDF) into the allegations. After a year of investigations, interviews and reviewing 18,000 pages of documents, the committee stated it could not find evidence of misconduct, clearing Dodd of violating the rule on accepting gifts. However, the committee chastised Dodd and fellow Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who also refinanced several loans through Countrywide and also was treated under the "Friends of Angelo" program. In its letter to Dodd the committee stated, "once you became aware that your loans were in fact being handled through a program with the name 'VIP,' that should have raised red flags for you."
The Dodds severed their loans with Countrywide in the summer of 2009. They refinanced at two separate banks (PDF), hiring an attorney as a third party, who solicited rates from lenders without revealing the Dodd name, and accepted two offers without negotiating.
Senator Thomas Dodd - The Ultimate Irony
Foulkes' grandfather was U.S. Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, who was best known for both prosecuting Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg trials after World War II and for political corruption.
The website for the Dodd Center writes, "The Dodd Center for Human Rights honors the public service and human rights legacies of Thomas J. Dodd and Christopher J. Dodd. Beginning with Thomas Dodd’s service as executive trial counsel to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and carrying through to Christopher Dodd’s leadership in the drafting and adoption of the Dodd-Frank Act and the Affordable Care Act, father and son have worked to advance justice and dignity for over 60 years."
But both Thomas and Chris Dodd's careers in the U.S. Senate ended due to their financial exploits.
"In 1967 Dodd became the first Senator censured by the US Senate since Joseph McCarthy in 1954, and was one of only six people censured by the Senate in the 20th century. The censure was a condemnation and finding that he had converted campaign funds to his personal accounts. There were allegations on other issues relating to corruption and alcoholism," wrote The New York Times.
The sad irony is that the Dodd Center dedicated to honoring Thomas Dodd's career fighting for human rights in the 20th Century was funded in part by the Sacklers, who built their wealth from one of the biggest human exploitations of the 21st Century.
And no one says a word.
Special thanks to the team at Johns Hopkins' UCSF-JHU Opioid Industry Documents Archive
COVER PHOTO: Gabor Molnar, Unsplash
Editor's Note: The Dodd Center opened on October 15, 1995. An earlier version included an incorrect date. The ceremony can be viewed HERE.
This story was first published 1/26/25 7:15 AM