University refuses to reject donations from Sackler family

Haaretz 08 June 2019

Although a growing number of major museums and academic institutions in the United States have decided not to accept any further donations from the Sackler family due to their company producing a drug at the centre of the US opioid epidemic, Israel’s greatest beneficiary of the family’s largesse – Tel Aviv University – is refusing to do so, writes Dina Kraft for Haaretz.

“As long as the issue has not been resolved in court, the university will not address the matter,” it said in response to an inquiry from Haaretz.

Anger has been growing internationally against the role some Sackler family members are alleged to have played in America’s opioid crisis – which claimed the lives of nearly 400,000 people between 1999 and 2017, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About half of those deaths are estimated to have been from prescription drugs, including OxyContin – the painkiller made by Purdue Pharma, the US pharmaceutical giant owned by the Sacklers.
Full report on the Haaretz site

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