at the center of the opioid epidemic sweeping the nation. The Sackler Family is the current owner of Purdue Pharma and worth right around 14 billion dollars. The Sacklers have been extremely generous with their wealth, endowing several academic chairs at universities across the country. These chairs allow research and opportunity to swell in these universities but the recent controversy surrounding the Sacklers has presented the universities with an ethical decision. In your opinion, what should the universities do with the money they have received from the Sackler family?
Facing this moral dilemma, my initial thought process is to first strip away all of the moral implications and consider just the tangibles. There is a family who has made their wealth through the pharmaceutical industry and accordingly has donated quite generously to universities – that part is certain. The underlying implication that forms the dilemma is that the money was made through the knowing propagation of the opioid crisis. In order to act on this thinking there are some necessary assumptions we simply do not know. First, we don’t know the what the Company’s exact role was in the crisis, considering that industrialized drug pipeline must pass from developing companies to wholesalers to Pharmacy Benefit Managers to Pharmacies which is then funded by overseeing insurance agencies prevents one from knowing for certain the extent of Purdue Pharma’s transgressions. We also don’t know Purdue Pharam’s knowledge of the situation, litigation could reasonably be aimed at other members along the pipeline and received FDA approval of the treatments in addition to the formulary placement from Pharmacy Benefit Managers could have led the company to assume the drugs were not spreading the opioid crisis. Even if we assume the worst case scenario, that Produce Pharama knowingly spread the opioid crisis, we do not know the Slackers families knowledge or involvement – preventing us from reasonably being able to assume malicious intent. At the heart of the dilemma, the concern is that the donated money was made from the suffering of those victimized by the opioid crisis, but as previously mentioned, this thought process cannot be verified. For that reason, I would advocate that the money should be used to benefit the students as would any other endowment, with one major condition. With the understanding of the money’s origins – I would contest that a portion of the donations be used to create a fund to help current and future students suffering from opioid addiction on campus. Additionally, I would advise that some of that money would go to an endowment which would fund a scholarship for prospective students who have had a parent or guardian who suffered from an opioid addiction and accordingly may not have the financial support to afford a college education.