Texas cancer researchers resign in disgust over cancer profiteering, commercialization

Texas cancer researchers resign in disgust over cancer profiteering, commercialization


(NaturalNews) A major rift has formed at the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas
(CPRIT), one of the largest publicly-funded efforts by a state
government to promote conventional cancer research and drug development,
after 33 scientists, including the group's chief scientific officer,
suddenly resigned from their posts. According to the Wall Street Journal
(WSJ), the group's research arm has been clashing with its oversight
arm over how funds are to be disbursed, with many raising qualms about
increasing commercialization and profiteering taking place within the
organization.

Hatched in 2007 with the goal of spending $3
billion by 2020 on cancer research and prevention, CPRIT has already
doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years, primarily
towards peer-reviewed research efforts that the group claims are for
"preventing and curing cancer." A much smaller portion of the group's
funding has typically been reserved for specific prevention efforts and
commercial projects, the latter of which involve the controversial use
of taxpayer dollars to fund the private development of new cancer drugs.

But
in 2012, the overall amount of CPRIT funding used for such commercial
projects increased dramatically, raising concerns among many of the
group's foundational members about where the organization is headed in
terms of its overall mission. And the CPRIT oversight committee, which
is supposed to consult with scientists before making major funding
decisions, has increasingly acted arbitrarily in deciding how to
disburse funds, with a larger share of these disbursements getting
directed towards questionable drug-development efforts rather than
actual research and prevention efforts.

CPRIT leadership obstructed peer review process to play favorites, claim scientists

The straw that broke the camel's back was an $18 million grant recently awarded to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, which was to be used for commercializing and rushing to market new cancer
drugs. According to now-departed scientists from CPRIT, which include
Nobel laureates Alfred G. Gilman, the group's chief scientific officer,
and Philip A. Sharp, along with many others, key leadership at CPRIT
flagrantly sidestepped the scientific peer review process in awarding
the grant, as well as several others, while putting various
peer-reviewed grants on the back burner.

CPRIT leadership has
also been steering the organization towards a "new, politically driven,
commercialization-based mission," according to one now-resigned scientist,
which implies that more public money is now being given to drug
companies to develop cancer drugs rather than to groups trying to
prevent and cure cancer. This same scientist warned in his resignation
letter that, if left unchecked, this hijacking of CPRIT by those with
ill motives and shady intent has the potential to "subvert the entire
scientific enterprise."

"I can't think of a better example than
this one of how a potential conflict of interest can undermine an
institution," Paul Root Wolpe, a bioethicist at Emory University, is quoted as saying to Nature about the situation.

Scientists' public call for resignation of key leadership at CPRIT to restore integrity

Though
the controversial grant to M.D. Anderson was eventually withdrawn in
response to voiced concerns, and the peer-reviewed grants moved through
the system as they should have been from the start, the culture of
respecting the peer-review process at CPRIT has continued to devolve
into what some whistleblower scientists have dubbed full-blown
"hucksterism." Corruption continues to take precedent over honest
science, they claim, which is what eventually drove them to make the
ultimate decision to depart from the group.

As far as any chance at restoring integrity to CPRIT, James M. Mansour, a Texas
businessman and current chairman of the group's oversight committee, is
one of the primary targets for removal, as his influence is said to be a
driving force behind the group's evolving cronyism. Appointed by Texas
Governor Rick "Gardasil" Perry, Mansour was exposed recently for
actually celebrating the departure of the group's primary scientists, as
they would no longer obstruct his plans to divvy up taxpayer dollars
how he personally sees fit.

"If the institute hopes to recruit
independent peer reviewers of the caliber that have just departed in
droves, its leadership must change at the very highest levels. Mansour's
removal is essential," said a recent Nature piece.
"Such housecleaning is also the only way to begin rebuilding the trust
of the Texas public, which has every right to expect that the $2 billion
as yet unspent by the CPRIT be awarded through unimpeachable peer
review."

Gov. Rick Perry, Lance Armstrong behind corrupt leadership at CPRIT

Gov. Perry, who continues to laud the work of Mansour at CPRIT -- Mansour has donated at least $55,000 to Perry's gubernatorial campaigns
since 2005, after all -- was one of the primary drivers behind the
passage of the legislation in Texas that created CPRIT back in 2007. The
now-shamed former cyclist Lance Armstrong also led the push to
establish CPRIT, which outside commentators and politicians are now
saying was flawed from the start.

"It was like somebody didn't
know how to write the creation of a state agency, but they did anyway,"
said Garnet Coleman, a member of the Texas House of Representatives, in a
recent statement. According to Coleman, the legislation to establish
CPRIT, which was pushed heavily by both Gov. Perry and Armstrong, lacked
proper internal safeguards and oversight by the legislature, which
suggests that it was almost designed with corruption in mind. "We need
to take the rules, fix them and put them in a statute," he added, noting
that he plans to introduce a new measure to amend the flawed agency
next year.

Source:-
http://www.naturalnews.com/037766_cancer_center_Texas_profiteering.html