Harvard Won't Remove Sackler Name from Campus Bldgs Despite Deep Ties to Opioid Epidemic, Purdue Pharma

Last edited Sun Aug 11, 2024, 11:24 AM - Edit history (1)

'Harvard declines to remove Sackler name from museum and campus building.' The Guardian, Aug. 10, 2024. - Ed. Committee rejects student denaming proposal despite role of Sackler-owned Purdue Pharma in US opioid epidemic.
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🏛 Harvard University has decided that it will not remove the name of the Sackler family from 2 of its buildings, despite years of protests from families of opioid overdose victims and anti-opioid groups. In its recent denaming proposal update, a Harvard review committee rebuffed a 23- page proposal filed in Oct. 2022 by Harvard College Overdose Prevention and Education Students to dename the Arthur M Sackler Museum, part of the Harvard Art Museums, and the Arthur M Sackler Building, a campus building.

The Sackler name is “deeply tied to the opioid epidemic,” according to the initial proposal which the Harvard Crimson reviewed. It went on to add:

“To many of us – students, staff, and faculty – it is unacceptable and deeply offensive that we are represented by the Sackler name … It is embarrassing and unsettling to know that our school, unlike almost every other cultural and educational institution that at one point displayed the Sackler name, has decided to keep the name, despite the message of disrespect that it sends to our community and to the world.”

The Sackler family owned and controlled Purdue Pharma, the former manufacturer of OxyContin.

The prescription painkiller has played a central role in the US’s deadly opioid epidemic which has seen more than 500,000 overdose deaths over the last 20 years. Explaining its decision to keep the Sackler name, the Harvard review committee wrote: “Informed by research and review of relevant literature, the committee found that while Arthur M Sackler’s legacy is complex and debatable, the petition did not meet the standard for denaming under Harvard’s procedures for handling denaming requests.”

Though he died nine years before the drug was introduced, Arthur Sackler’s name has become heavily synonymous with Purdue Pharma and the deadly opioid crisis. Still, the committee said it was not persuaded by the proposal’s arguments that denaming is appropriate because Arthur Sackler’s name is tainted by association with other members of the Sackler family, or because Arthur Sackler shares responsibility for the opioid crisis due to his having developed aggressive pharmaceutical marketing techniques that others misused after his death”...
https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/aug/10/harvard-sackler-buildings#:
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💊 Wiki. The Sackler family is an American family who owned the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma and later founded Mundipharma. Purdue Pharma, and some members of the family, have faced lawsuits regarding overprescription of addictive pharmaceutical drugs, including OxyContin. Purdue Pharma has been criticized for its role in the opioid epidemic in the U.S. They have been described as the "most evil family in America", and "the worst drug dealers in history."

In 1996, Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin, a reformulated version of oxycodone in a slow-release form. Oxycodone was first invented in 1916 and sold as Eukodal, but had been withdrawn from the market in 1990 due to addiction issues. Heavily promoted, OxyContin is a key drug in the emergence of the opioid epidemic.

The Sackler family has donated to cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Guggenheim. The family has also donated to universities, including Harvard University, Yale University, Cornell University, and the University of Oxford, although the latter severed ties in 2023. The Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv Univ. is named after Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler for their donations but the name was removed in June 2023. Similarly, the Sackler Inst. of Pulmonary Pharmacology at King's College London was named after Mortimer and Theresa Sackler.

According to The NYT, the Louvre in Paris was the first major museum to "erase its public association" with the Sackler family name. On July 16, 2019, the museum had removed the plaque at the gallery entrance about Sacklers’ donations made to the museum. The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced it would remove the Sackler name from galleries and other locations within the museum in December 2021. The family's philanthropy has been characterized as reputation laundering from profits acquired from the selling of opiates. In 2022, the British Museum announced that it would rename the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Rooms and Wing as part of a 'new masterplan", and that it "made this decision together through collaborative discussions" with the Sackler Foundation...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sackler_family