OxyContin Maker owners paid $19 million to an institution that advises on opioid policies

Members of the Sackler family — the wealthy owners of Purdue Pharma and OxyContin — paid donations of over $19 million to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, a powerful body that advises U.S. opioid policy, according to a bombshell report from The New York Times.

The Times outlined a series of events that pose a possible conflict of interest. According to reports from the Treasurer, Dr. Raymond Sackler, his wife Beverly and the couple’s foundation in 2008 to donate large sums of money to the academies. They died in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Dame Jillian Sackler also donated millions of dollars to the academies as of 2000. The academies invested the funds and grew to over $31 million by the end of 2021.

The allegations continue: The Pain Care Forum, a group co-founded by Burt Rosen, then-Purdue lobbyist, pushed for legislation introduced in 2007 and 2009 that contained plans calling for a report from the academies to ” to improve the recognition of pain as a disease a significant public health problem.”

If the allegations are true, they pose a serious conflict of interest. So the Times turned to Michael Rehn von Korff – a medical researcher who studies, among other things, the treatment of chronic pain – for insight into the matter.

“I didn’t know they were taking private money,” von Korff told the New York Times. “It sounds like madness to take money from drug company directors and then do reports on opioids. I’m really shocked.”

Last Prisoner Project founder Steve DeAngelo posted the report on Instagram, calling the revelations “disgusting.” Medicinal cannabis is often used as an alternative to opioids in some situations.

OxyContin’s role in the opioid crisis

OxyContin was developed and patented by Purdue Pharma LP in 1996 and was originally available in multiple doses, the US Department of Justice notes. At first it seemed like OxyContin had revolutionized medicine, but then the opioid epidemic spread.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), over 760,000 people have died from drug overdoses since 1999, with nearly 75% of drug overdose deaths in 2020 attributable to an opioid. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that drug overdose deaths “have quintupled since 1999.”

A 2011 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine claimed that 100 million Americans suffered from chronic pain – a third of the entire US population – and while this is often cited by government organizations, that number is now being challenged as absurd . That report prompted the US Food and Drug Administration to approve at least one strong opioid, Zohydro, a slow-release hydrocodone.

In 2016, just months after the National Academies received a $10 million donation from the Sackler family, the FDA asked the institution to form a committee to create new recommendations on opioids. But the academies have been accused of having patchy ties to opioid makers, including Purdue Pharma. Four people were removed from the panel after this incident.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine were founded by Abraham Lincoln, and US law is shaped by the data they publish. In recent decades, however, the academy has been used to help combat America’s opioid crisis.

The opioid crisis is complex and it is difficult to differentiate between people who are addicted and people who are in really bad pain. But the overdose death toll cannot be ignored as it surpasses the death toll from war and disease. In 2017, HHS declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency.

There is also another side of the story. Megan Lowry of the National Academies told the New York Times that Sackler’s donations “have never been used to support opioid counseling activities or to help address the opioid crisis” and that they are being prevented from returning Sackler’s donations, because of legal restrictions.