Sackler family

The Sackler family are descendants of Isaac Sackler and his wife Sophie (née Greenberg), Jewish immigrants to the United States from Galicia (now Ukraine) and Poland,[4] who established a grocery business in Brooklyn. The couple had three sons, Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler who all went to medical school and became psychiatrists. They were often cited as early pioneers in medication techniques which ended the common practice of lobotomies, and were also regarded as the first to fight for the racial integration of blood banks.[5] In 1952, the brothers bought a small pharmaceutical company, Purdue-Frederick.[6] Raymond and Mortimer ran Purdue, while Arthur, the oldest brother, became a pioneer in medical advertising and one of the foremost art collectors of his generation. He also gifted the majority of his collections to museums around the world. After his death in 1987, his option on one third of that company was sold by his estate to his two brothers who turned it into Purdue Pharma.[7]

In 1996 Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin, a version of oxycodone reformulated in a slow-release form. Heavily promoted,[8][9] oxycodine is seen as a key drug in the emergence of the opioid epidemic.[10][11] Elizabeth Sackler, daughter of Arthur Sackler, claimed that her branch of the family did not participate in or benefit from the sales of narcotics. While some have criticized Arthur Sackler for pioneering marketing techniques to promote non-opioids decades earlier, Professor Evan Gertsman said in Forbes magazine, "It is an absurd inversion of logic to say that because Arthur Sackler pioneered direct marketing to physicians, he is responsible for the fraudulent misuse of that technique, which occurred many years after his death and from which he procured no financial gain."[12][13][14] In 2018, multiple members of the Raymond and Mortimer Sackler families, Richard Sackler, Theresa Sackler, Kathe Sackler, Jonathan Sackler, Mortimer Sackler, Beverly Sackler, David Sackler, and Ilene Sackler, were all named as defendants in suits filed by numerous states over their involvement in the opioid crisis.[15][16]

The family was first listed in Forbes list of America's Richest Families in 2015.[4]

The Sackler family has made a name as philanthropists and supported major cultural institutions, including the Jewish Museum (Manhattan); Metropolitan Museum of Art; the American Museum of Natural History; the Guggenheim; the Smithsonian; the Tate Gallery; the National Gallery; the Natural History Museum, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum; the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; the British Museum; Shakespeare's Globe; the Serpentine Galleries; and the Louvre.[23][24]

The family also supported universities, including Harvard University, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Columbia University, Tufts University, New York University, the Royal College of Art, the University of Sussex, and the University of Edinburgh.[4][23] The Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University is named after Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler for their donations. Similarly, the Sackler Institute of Pulmonary Pharmacology at King's College London was named after Mortimer and Theresa Sackler.[25][26]

The Sackler family name, as used in institutions which the family have donated to, saw increased scrutiny in the late 2010s over the family's association with OxyContin. David Crow, writing in the Financial Times, described the family name as "tainted" (cf. Tainted donors).[27][28] In March 2019, the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate galleries in the UK announced that they would not accept further donations from the family. This came after the American photographer Nan Goldin threatened to withdraw a planned retrospective of her work in the National Portrait Gallery if the gallery accepted a £1 million donation from a Sackler fund.[29][30] In June 2019, NYU Langone Medical Center announced they will no longer be accepting donations from the Sacklers, but have yet to change the name of the Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences.[31] Later in 2019, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, each announced they will not accept future donations from any Sacklers that were involved in Purdue Pharma.[32]

On July 1, 2019, Nan Goldin, an American photographer, the founder of P.A.I.N.,[33] led a small groups of protesters who unfurled a banner "Take down the Sackler name" against the backdrop of the Louvre's glass pyramid.[33][34][35][36][37] According to The New York Times, 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. Throughout the gallery, grey tape covered signs such as Sackler Wing, including signage for the Louvre's Persian and Levantine artifacts collection, which was removed on July 8 or 9. Signage for the collection had identified it as the Sackler Wing of Oriental Antiquities since 1997.[38]

In 2019, a suit was brought in the Southern District of New York, which included more than 500 counties, cities and Native American tribes. It named eight family members: Richard, Jonathan, Mortimer, Kathe, David, Beverly and Theresa Sackler as well as Ilene Sackler Lefcourt.[39] In addition, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Utah all brought suits against the family. On the federal level, the family faced an overall bundle of 1,600 cases.[40]