By:  Benyamin Davidsons

Some 75 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine are publicly questioning millions of dollars the organization has accepted in donations from the Sackler family.

As reported by the NY Times, the National Academies accepted approximately $19 million in donations over the years from the family, some of whom led Purdue Pharma.  The pharmacy company’s drug named OxyContin, has been under fire for allegedly helping fuel the prescription opioid crisis, which has reportedly claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.  The National Academies institute has total endowments worth some $31 million stemming from investments on donations from the family, as of late 2021, which is the most recent accounting available.

Since 2008, Sackler family members, who were active in running Purdue Pharma, have been donating to the National Academies of Sciences.  Some of the funds have been utilized to run forums and studies.  In 2015, family members donated $10 million to launch the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Convergence Research, as confirmed by the organization’s treasurer. Some universities that accepted Sackler funds, including Tufts and Brown, have reallocated some of the money to addiction prevention and treatment efforts.  The National Academies told the NY Times that since 2019, donations from the Sackler family were not used for science-related events, research and awards—which were the stated purpose for the contributions. The funds “were never used to support any advisory activities on the use of opioids,” said Megan Lowry, a spokeswoman.

On Thursday, some six dozen members of National Academies penned a letter to the organization, demanding an explanation as to why, for years, the millions in donations from the family were not returned or repurposed.  As per the Times, the letter addressed to Marcia McNutt, president of the N.A.S., specifically demanded clarification on how  research committee members were selected who were deeply funded by and had ties to Purdue, to run nonprofits and provide guidance to federal authorities on opioid policy: “How did the system fail in the past?” the letter asked.

“The academy was looking like it had been morally asleep for the last 30 years,” Robert Putnam, one of the letter’s authors, said in an interview.  Other members who signed the letters included eight Nobel Prize winners. Robert M. Hauser, a prominent socialscientist,  is one of several outspoken members who have been pushing the organization since 2017 to “disassociate itself from the Sacklers.”

The National Academies was established by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, aiming to advise the U.S. on scientific and medical issues. Top scientists and physicians are elected annually join as members — and the organization gives influential advice to the White House, Congress and other federal agencies. Roughly 70% of the organization’s budget stems from federal funds.  The remaining 30% is raised from private donations.  Other prominent donors to the group include the companies Chevron, Google, Merck and Medtronic.

On Friday, the organization issued a comment in response to the letter.  “We of course take the concerns of National Academy of Sciences members seriously, and their concerns were in part what prompted very serious conversations here about returning or repurposing the funds, to which the N.A.S. remains committed,” the organization said in a statement.

Dr. and Ms. Sackler died in 2017 and 2019. An attorney for the family said the donations they made had “nothing at all to do with pain, medications or anything related to the (Purdue) company.”