Edward Sondik on his beginnings in public health, cancer prevention, and a “battlefield promotion”

I got kind of a battlefield promotion when Sam Broder was director and I became the NCI Acting Deputy Director. The then-current Deputy Director had unexpectedly died. 

An acting deputy director for NCI was needed. So, Broder came down from the eleventh floor to the tenth floor, walked in on me one day and said, “How would you like to be the acting deputy director?” 

I was completely floored. So, as they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time, so I said Yes. 

We briefly thereafter encountered a scandal related to breast cancer treatment…There were accusations that, in one of the large cooperative groups that conducted cancer treatment trials for breast cancer, one of the many, many investigators had falsified data. And the person who headed the overall group was an icon named Bernie Fisher. 

And to make a long story short, there was a Congressional investigation and the agency became just almost paralyzed by this. 

As this was coming to a close, Sam Broder left. I then became the acting director of NCI for a period of about, I don’t know, six or eight months. 

Conducted on January 9, 2009, by Philip L. Cantelon, History Associates Inc.

At the time of this interview, Dr. Edward Sondik served as the Director of the National Cancer Center for Health Statistics (NCCHS) of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 

This interview covers Dr. Sondik’s early work with the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control and the growth of epidemiology. He discusses the pioneering aspects of the division and the development of the Cancer Surveillance Program and the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program. While working for the DCP and the NCI, Dr. Sondik assumed administrative roles and his work often concerned policy and coordination between NCI, the NIH, and even Congress. This interview reflects his transition from SEER director to influential administrator.

NCI is committed to increasing the participation of minorities in clinical trials, the Institute’s acting director said last week.

Edward Sondik, speaking at a symposium on minorities and cancer held in Washington last week, said cancer researchers have had only limited success in involving more minorities in their studies.

“We are having difficulties recruiting minorities to these trials,” Sondik said. “We have tried mightily.”

Having weathered several years ofturmoil, NCI remains a solid institution, the Institute’s Acting Director Edward Sondik said at a Congressional hearing last week.

“I won’t say that all has been easy over the last few years, but I do feel that we are on a very good path toward stability, and I think the mental health of the place is pretty good at this point,” Sondik said at a hearing ofthe House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS & Education.