The Sackler Trust pauses charitable donations over alleged links to US opioid crisis
The Sackler Trust is run by the Sackler family, members of which own a company selling the prescription painkiller OxyContin.
Monday 25 March 2019 14:20, UK
A charitable trust that has donated millions of pounds to medical science, healthcare, education and the arts in the UK has announced it is suspending all donations over alleged links to the US opioid crisis.
The Sackler Trust is run by the Sackler family - members of which own Purdue Pharma, a company selling the prescription painkiller OxyContin.
Purdue Pharma is facing hundreds of lawsuits in the US aiming to hold it to account for its alleged role in the country's opioid drug addiction crisis.
It is claimed that the company sold OxyContin as a drug with a low chance of triggering addictions, despite knowing this to be not true.
Opioids were involved in almost 48,000 deaths in 2017 across the US, according to estimates from officials.
Earlier in March, a £1m donation to the National Portrait Gallery was cancelled - and the Sackler Trust has now said all philanthropic giving will cease temporarily so the issue is "not a distraction for institutions that are applying for grants".
Since 2010, the Sackler Trust claims to have donated more than £60m, with the organisation stressing that any existing commitments will be honoured.
Dame Theresa Sackler, who chairs the charitable trust, said in a statement: "I am deeply saddened by the addiction crisis in America and support the actions Purdue Pharma is taking to help tackle the situation, whilst still rejecting the false allegations made against the company and several members of the Sackler family.
"The current press attention that these legal cases in the United States is generating has created immense pressure on the scientific, medical, educational and arts institutions here in the UK, large and small, that I am so proud to support."
Purdue Pharma denies wrongdoing and has said that its products were approved by federal regulators and prescribed by doctors.
Professor Christopher Frayling, who is a former rector of the Royal College of Art and ex-chairman of Arts Council England, said it was a "very sad day for the arts".
He told the Today programme: "[The Sackler family has] had a huge effect over the last 10 years... I'm worried that it'll lead to a sort of moral panic in the arts world where lines are drawn."
One of the lawsuits filed against the family last week said: "Eight people in a single family made the choices that caused much of the opioid epidemic."