By COLLIN BINKLEY AP Education Writer
BOSTON (AP) — Tufts University is cutting ties with the billionaire family that owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, saying it will strip the Sackler name from its campus and accept no further donations amid concerns over the family's role in the opioid crisis.
University officials announced the decision Thursday, ending a relationship that has spanned nearly four decades and brought $15 million to the school's science and medical programs. Tufts leaders said they considered the issue for more than a year before concluding it is inconsistent with the school's values to display the family's name.
"We had to deal with the reality that the Sackler name has become associated with a health care epidemic. Given our medical school's mission, we needed to reconcile that," Peter Dolan, chairman of Tufts' board of trustees, said in an interview.
A firm that represents the Sackler family did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The change was announced at the same time officials released findings from an outside review examining the school's ties with the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma. The inquiry, commissioned by the school, found no major wrongdoing but concluded there was an "appearance of too close a relationship between Purdue, the Sacklers and Tufts.
The family's ties with Tufts date to 1980, when the three founding brothers of Purdue Pharma provided a donation to establish the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences. Tufts separately named its medical school building after one of the brothers, Arthur, after he made a donation in 1983.
Arthur Sackler's wife, Jillian, served on the university's board of trustees for a decade starting in 1986. And Richard Sackler, a Purdue board member and former CEO, sat on the medical school's board of advisers for nearly two decades until he left in 2017.
Officials said the Sackler name will now be dropped from all campus facilities and programs, including the biomedical sciences school, the medical school, a laboratory and two research funds. A sign bearing Arthur Sackler's name on the facade of the medical school was being removed Thursday.
Tufts joins a growing number of colleges seeking distance from the Sackler family amid pressure from students and activists. Several have stopped accepting gifts from the family, including Cornell and Yale universities. Others, including Brown University, said they will redirect past donations to support addiction treatment.
An Associated Press review in October found that prestigious universities around the world accepted at least $60 million from the Sacklers over the past five years. Some critics say schools should return the money so it can be used to help cities and states harmed by the opioid crisis.
Past donations to Tufts will continue to be used for their original purpose, officials said, but the university will establish a $3 million endowment to support research and education on addiction. The school also plans to create an educational exhibit exploring Tufts' history with the Sacklers.
Previously known for their philanthropy, the Sacklers have more recently gained attention for their role in the opioid crisis. Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy this year amid thousands of lawsuits accusing it of aggressively pushing OxyContin despite its addiction risks. Some of the suits target individual members of the family, who deny wrongdoing.
Students and faculty at Tufts have long called on the school to sever ties with the Sacklers, especially those in science and medicine programs. Dr. Harris Berman, dean of the medical school, said the building's name had become an "embarrassment."
"Our alumni, our board of advisers all have been troubled by the fact that we've got the Sackler name all over the place," Berman said in an interview. "I think there's going to be a great sigh of relief among all of them that we've finally done the right thing. Certainly I feel that way."
Tufts also faces criticism over its direct ties to Purdue Pharma. In 1999, the company paid to establish a master's program on pain research and education, and continued to fund it for a decade. One of the company's senior executives became a lecturer in the program and was appointed as an adjunct professor.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey alleged in a January civil complaint that Purdue used the partnership with Tufts to bolster its reputation and promote OxyContin. In response, Tufts' president ordered the outside review examining the relationship.
The inquiry, led by a former U.S. attorney, found that Purdue and the Sacklers contributed a combined $15 million to Tufts since 1980. Much of the family's funding supported research on cancer and neuroscience.
Investigators found no evidence that the funding significantly skewed Tufts' research or academic programs, but they believe the family and its company benefited from the relationship in subtler ways.
In 2002, for example, the director of the Tufts pain program appeared in an advertisement for Purdue, with his Tufts affiliation prominently displayed. In 2015, the medical school chose not to assign students to read "Dreamland," a book on the opioid crisis, largely because it was too critical of the Sacklers, the review found.
"We do believe that Purdue intended to use the relationship with Tufts to advance its own interests and, in a few particular instances, there is some evidence that it was successful in exercising influence," the report found.
Tufts leaders say they plan to implement a slate of recommendations included in the report. It called for "heightened scrutiny" of donors, greater transparency surrounding research donors, and the creation of a committee to review large gifts that "raise questions of conflicts of interest, reputational risk for the university or other controversy."
___
Collin Binkley can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/cbinkley
Diversify Or Decline
Most people believe diversity in our society is a worthy goal. It seems a particularly sensible one for a nation established and built by individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds. But how to achieve and sustain it?...A bit of history. For centuries the privileged class took steps to ensure their success and those of their male offspring. The well-established old boy network was in many ways an efficient system that worked for those who ran it, primarily WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Admission to college, employment offers and promotion opportunities were heavily influenced by who you knew, who recommend you. But the well-oiled network had fatal flaws. It was insular, extremely restrictive and self-serving. It was great for those connected males, and in the past, males were the preferred gender for sure. But what about everybody else? Vast numbers of under-served ethnic, religious or national groups didn’t have a chance. The playing field was painfully uneven. The cards were stacked against hundreds of thousands of Americans if not millions be it for education or employment opportunities. Finally, in the 1960s affirmative action was…
Judging Good-Looking Employees As Bad
(AP)(THE CONVERSATION) Beautiful people tend to have a lot more luck in the work world. Research has shown people deemed attractive get paid more, receive better job evaluations and are generally more employable. It’s even been shown that good-looking CEOs bring better stock returns for their companies. In part, this may be because companies believe consumers are more likely to buy things from beautiful employees, which is perhaps why retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch have used looks as criteria in their hiring process. Abercrombie says it stopped doing that in 2015. There’s some evidence, however, that this worker “beauty premium” may be wearing off – at least when it comes to employees who interact with consumers. In television commercials, for example, retailers and other companies are increasingly using real people – with all their physical flaws – rather than photoshopped models to give their brands an “authentic” feel. Research several colleagues and I conducted recently suggests that companies may be wise to...
New Grads Reveal A Confidence Gender Gap
For perhaps the first and only time in a person’s professional life where they are competing in a somewhat level playing field is as a freshly minted college graduate. If your grades are comparable and you are competing in the same field as your fellow graduate, you should be just as confident about landing a coveted job as he or she might be. But a study of recent college graduates reveals that this is not necessarily so. You point of view, it turns out, is very much affected by what gender you are. The survey, conducted as part of the Cengage Student Opportunity Index, shows that while recent college graduates feel good about their job prospects, women are much less confident than men when it comes to salary expectations. Women are also significantly less optimistic than men about the country’s economic outlook, with a majority reporting they feel the country is on the wrong track. And these concerns are not unreasonable. The fact that we are a society that is ideologically divided over the question of equal pay for equal work and statistics that…
2 Physicians Personalize Vaccine Debate
In the year 2000, the national vaccination rate was 90% to 95%. Measles was declared officially eliminated in this country. However, since that time an anti-vaccine movement has sprung up internationally, which has lowered the percentage of children vaccinated at levels that are alarming the medical community. Earlier this year, there was a surge of measles cases in Washington State. The vaccination rate across Clark County, Wash. was 78%, but some schools in the area have had rates under 40%, according to the Clark County Public Health website. Washington State legislators introduced bills to deny parents refusing to vaccinate their children for personal and philosophical reasons. Washington was one of only 17 states that allowed for that exemption. The bills, supporters explained, was to prevent a full-blown epidemic in the Pacific Northwest. After a contentious debate and hearings, the bills were passed and signed into law by Governor Jay Inslee. What follows are the views of two Physicians who have been personally touched by...
Using Crowdsourcing To Diagnose Patients
It’s no surprise that the internet has changed the practice of Medicine. TeleMedicine is now being recognized by major insurance carriers and medical facilities as a viable option for Patients. Physicians routinely consult and exchange files on line. Patients can access their medical files and history through laboratory and hospital websites. But now crowdsourcing has taken Medicine to a whole new level. A new series on Netflix explores how Physicians can harness the power of the internet to better treat their Patients and provide a window into the entire diagnosis process. The series, “Diagnosis,” explores the life-changing impact of receiving a diagnosis for individuals who’ve been searching for answers, and the healing that comes with connecting with others who can empathize with their experiences. Based on Dr. Lisa Sanders’ column in The New York Times Magazine, “Diagnosis” follows various Patients on their respective journeys toward finding a diagnosis, and potentially a cure, for their mysterious illnesses. By combining the power of…
Place your job ad in our classified page on the HO print & digital Edition
