Dubious ties to cancer industry undercut docs

Sloan Kettering pulls rug out from under its execs after apparent conflicts of interest

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, under siege for potential conflicts of interest, has severely tightened the reins on its top executives.

No longer will they be able to serve on corporate boards of drug and health care companies, according to a story by Katie Thomas and Charles Ornstein in The New York Times this week.

The sanctions were imposed following a series of stories by The Times and ProPublica, a nonprofit journalism organization, that exposed questionable exec ties to the industry. 

In some cases, the article indicates, the companies "had paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year."

Officials at the facility, one of the world's most prominent, apparently also were informed by officials of their parent hospital that "a series of reforms designed to limit the ways in which its top executives and leading researchers could profit from work developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering, a nonprofit with a broad social mission that admits about 23,500 cancer patients each year," were being made permanent.

The conflicts at the center, the story continues, "have had a rippling effect on other leading cancer institutions across the country."

Dana-Farber Center Institute in Boston and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, for example, are said to be reconsidering their policies on financial ties.

Dr. Craig B. Thompson

After muck-raking reports were published last fall that included information that Dr. Craig B. Thompson, Sloan Kettering's chief exec, was paid about $300,000 for his services in 2017, Thompson resigned from the board of Merck.

Earlier, The Times and ProPublica had alleged that Dr. José Baselga, Sloan Kettering's chief medical officer, "had failed to disclose millions of dollars in payments from drug and health companies in dozens of articles in medical journals."

Baselga resigned within days of the stories going public — and "stepped down from the boards of the drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb and Varian Medical Systems, a radiation equipment manufacturer."

Sloan Kettering employees who represent the hospital on corporate boards now will be barred from "accepting personal compensation, like equity stakes or stock options, from the companies."

The Times story quotes Dr. Walid Gellad, director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing at the University of Pittsburgh, as calling the policy changes a "watershed moment."

More information about research facilities can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Memorial Sloan Kettering forced to shift focus

Are conflict of interest chances sullying the reputation of a prestigious cancer center?

The famed Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center apparently is in turmoil, at least as far as raising money is concerned.

And possibly as far as its reputation is concerned.

According to a recent story by Katie Thomas and Charles Ornstein in The New York Times, the facility — which the piece refers to as "one of the nation's most prestigious cancer centers" — "has abruptly changed the focus of an annual fund-raising campaign amid a widening crisis that has already led to the resignation of its chief medical officer and a sweeping re-examination of its policies."

A brochure on the center's website indicated that the campaign, "initially titled 'Harnessing Big Data,' was to have focused on the cancer center's research into the use of artificial intelligence in cancer  treatment."

The shift in focus followed an earlier Times article, written in conjunction with ProPublica, a nonprofit journalism organization — just as the latest story was. That piece dealt with an exclusive deal the center made with an AI start-up "to use digital images of 25 million tissue slides analyzed over decades."

But the company, Paige.AI, "was founded by three hospital insiders and also involved investors who were Memorial Sloan Kettering board members."

According to the Times story by Thomas and Ornstein, pathologists at the hospital, whose main campus is in New York City, "complained that their work was being commercialized for private gain and that patients were not being informed that images of their tissue slides were being shared with an outside company." 

Although the hospital and its officials claimed they didn't do anything wrong, they did acknowledge "that they could have communicated better," the Times piece contended.

Kenneh Manotti

After the first article, Kenneth Manotti, the center's senior vice president and chief development officer, sent an email "to board members of the Society of MSK, the hospital's fund-raising effort, and an affiliated committee [that said the effort] would be postponed 'under the current circumstances, as we navigate through the issues at hand.'"
The society normally raised between $800,000 and $1 million annually for the hospital.

In September, Dr. José Baselga, the hospital's chief medical officer, quit under fire after the Times and ProPublica "revealed that he had failed to disclose his extensive industry ties in dozens of medical journal articles in recent years."

The hospital, the latest article says, "has announced a task force to study its conflict-of-interest policies."

In an email from Dr. Craig B. Thompson, the hospital's chief executive, and Dr. Lisa DeAngelis, acting physician-in-chief, low staff morale was acknowledged. 

Other stories about fund-raising efforts can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.