More than 75 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine demanded on Thursday that the organization explain why it has for years failed to return or reuse millions of dollars donated by the Sackler family, including some who ran Purdue Pharma .
The company’s drug, OxyContin, helped spark an opioid crisis that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The New York Times reported this month that even as the Academies advised the government on opioid policies, the organization accepted $19 million from the Sackler family and appointed influential members to its committees who had financial ties to Purdue Pharma.
A report from the Academies claimed that 100 million, or 40 percent of Americans, had chronic pain. The figure, later determined to be too high, was cited by drug companies to convince doctors to write large numbers of opioid prescriptions.
In a letter to Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academies of Sciences, scientists and economists called on the organization to clarify how members of its investigative committee who ran nonprofits heavily funded by Purdue were chosen to guide federal authorities in opioid policy: “How has the system failed in the past?” the letter asked.
“The academy looked like it had been morally asleep for the past 30 years,” Robert Putnam, an author of the letter and professor of public policy at Harvard, said in an interview.
“We take the concerns of members of the National Academy of Sciences seriously, of course, and their concerns prompted, in part, very serious discussions here about the return or reallocation of the funds, to which the NAS remains committed,” the organization said in a statement. a statement on Friday. .
The National Academies were chartered by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to advise the nation on scientific and medical issues. The institution elects new members – elite scientists and physicians – each year and provides influential advice to the White House, Congress and federal agencies.
While about 70 percent of the National Academies’ budget comes from federal funds, it also collects private donations from individuals, nonprofits, and companies, including Chevron, Google, Merck, and Medtronic.
“If they start to see the problem – that is, this huge influx of private money, and private money often comes with implicit conditions – they will see it as a threat to the core principles of the Academies,” said Dr. Putnam on the National The Current Leadership of Academies.
Eight Nobel Prize winners are among the signatories of the letter. Two authors are members of the National Academies of Sciences who in 2017 urged top officials to distance themselves from the Sacklers’ organization.
Robert M. Hauser, a leading social scientist, wrote in an October 2017 email to two top Academies officials: “I have been reflecting on the willingness of the NAS to accept support from the Sackler family and produce events and awards – lectures, forums, colloquia, prizes — however meritorious, in their name.”
He and another member of the Academies had concluded “that the NAS should distance itself from the Sacklers.” The other member was Angus Deaton, a Nobel laureate and co-author of a book about rising deaths from substance use and suicide among members of the white working class.
Dr. Deaton said in an interview that he and Dr. Hauser had asked to call top officials about the Sacklers’ involvement.
“We especially wanted to warn them that there was a lot of trouble coming on this route, and tens of thousands of people were dying and the Sacklers were giving them money,” recalled Dr. Deaton himself in an interview.
Dr. Hauser, who worked at the National Academies from 2010 to 2016, referenced an in-depth New Yorker article about the Sackler family’s “ruthless” marketing of OxyContin in the email sent to Bruce Darling, then executive officer, and James Hinchman, then the chief operating officer.
“Sooner or later I thought this was going to blow up in their face,” said Dr. Hauser in an interview. “And it would really tarnish the reputation of the Academies, which I was eager to defend.”
Four minutes after Dr. Hauser was e-mailed, he received a reply from Mr. Darling: “We had a meeting at the NAS Council last summer about the issue you are raising, and we have made a decision that I would be pleased with. are discussing with you.”
Mr. Darling and Mr. Hinchman did not respond to messages asking for comment.
Dr. Hauser recalled that Mr. Darling summarized the Sacklers’ donations as something that had been discussed and did not require further action. Dr. Deathon and Dr. Hauser felt their concerns were allayed.
Two National Academies reports on opioids have been criticized by experts. One published in 2011 included two panelists with significant financial ties to Purdue and concluded that 100 million Americans suffered from chronic pain, a number that turned out to be vastly exaggerated. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later estimated that about 52 million adults suffered from chronic pain, and more than 17 million American adults experience severe or more severe chronic pain.)
Still, the report armed drug companies with a talking point that proved influential with Food and Drug Administration officials overseeing opioid approval. It was also cited by Purdue Pharma attorneys in response to a Senate investigation.
Another Academies committee on opioid policy was singled out by Oregon Democrat Senator Ron Wyden because of some members’ ties to Purdue. That panel, formed in 2016, moved forward with an investigation after four members were replaced.
Articles in The Progressive and in The BMJ, or the British Medical Journal, have also pointed to the Sacklers’ ties to the Academies and identified additional committee members with ties to Purdue.
Friday’s letter asked, among other things, for “clear answers” on the procedures to “ensure that the members of the advisory committee are properly vetted”.
The Academies told The Times that as of 2019, donations from the Sackler family were no longer used for science-related events, research and awards, the purposes for which they were intended. The funds “were never used to support advisory activities on opioid use,” said Megan Lowry, a spokeswoman.
The donations amounted to approximately $19 million and, as funds invested in the institution’s endowment, were worth approximately $31 million at the end of 2021, the most recent accounting available. Universities that accepted Sackler funds, including Tufts and Brown, reallocated some of the money to addiction prevention and treatment efforts.
Members of the Sackler family who were active in running Purdue Pharma began donating to the National Academies of Sciences in 2008. The money was used to sponsor forums and studies.
In 2015, family members donated $10 million to launch the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Convergence Research, according to reports from the organization’s treasurer. Dr. and Mrs. Sackler died in 2017 and 2019. A lawyer for the family said those donations “had absolutely nothing to do with pain, drugs or anything related to the business.”
Dame Jillian Sackler, whose husband, Arthur, died years before OxyContin hit the market, began giving to the Academies in 2000 and donated $5 million by 2017, according to Academies reports.
A day after The Times report appeared, the National Academies issued a statement saying they had investigated whether the money would be returned or reused. Doing this in an ethical and transparent manner will be the most important consideration.
A perceived lack of urgency in the statement helped prompt the new letter from Academies members. “It’s another blunder as we read it,” said Dr. Hauser.
He added: “We wrote our letter to tell them, ‘You guys need to be serious about this, fast and sufficient.'”
