Sacklers gave $19M to National Academies amid influential pain, opioid reports

Enlarge / Protesters holding banners outside the courthouse. Members of P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) and Truth Pharm staged a rally and die-in outside New York’s Southern District Federal Court in White Plains, where Purdue Pharmaceuticals bankruptcy hearing is being held. (credit: Getty | Erik McGregor)

Members of the Sackler family—the infamous, mega-wealthy family largely seen as sparking the nationwide opioid epidemic—donated roughly $19 million to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine while the organization drafted two reports that influenced national policies around opioids, according to an investigation by The New York Times.

The revelation is another glimpse at the extent to which the Sacklers apparently tried to manipulate science and policy to plump its profits. The report also raises questions as to why the National Academies has been quiet about the donations and has not conducted a review of whether the funds and other potential conflicts of interest influenced its reports. The Times notes that in 2019, the World Health Organization retracted two opioid guidance documents after a review backed up concerns that the drafting process had been influenced by opioid manufacturers, including the Sacklers’ Purdue Pharma.

Members of the Sackler family owned and largely directed Purdue Pharma in the late 1990s when the company allegedly began aggressively and deceptively selling its highly addictive opioid painkiller, OxyContin. The Sacklers are estimated to have raked in more than $10 billion from opioid sales in the years after.