This series re-examines the concurrent controversies at the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and MD Anderson Cancer Center. This examination is possible in part because of new insight provided by Alfred Gilman, the Nobel laureate who served as the first scientific director of the state institution that distributes $300 million a year. Gilman died on Dec. 23, 2015.
Slamming The Door
Some stories warrant re-examination. The concurrent controversies at Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center went on for more than two years, from 2012 to 2014, generating dozens of stories.
Events unfold with logic of their own. In this case, questions of integrity of peer review were central to the story. As reporters, we jumped from one fire to another. Then, sometimes, when the story has played out, it’s possible to move on to a reexamination.
This is what we did in this series of 14 stories. The Cancer Letter went back to re-examine these explosive events. The examination is possible in part because of new insight provided by Alfred Gilman, the Nobel laureate who served as the first scientific director of the state institution that distributes $300 million a year. Gilman died on Dec. 23, 2015.
This series re-examines the concurrent controversies at the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and MD Anderson Cancer Center. This examination is possible in part because of new insight provided by Alfred Gilman, a Nobel laureate who served as the first scientific director of the state institution that distributes $300 million a year. Gilman died on Dec. 23, 2015.
Between the fall of 2011 and the spring of 2012, I watched MD Anderson from afar, and I didn't think about CPRIT at all.
In early 2012, Gilman was under the impression that CPRIT was functioning smoothly.
Gilman's letter of resignation, dated May 8, 2012, concludes with a hard slam:
After my conversation with Gilman, I called MD Anderson and asked to talk with somebody about the $18 million grant for a biotech incubator.
On May 25, 2012, I received an email from Len Zwelling:
The $18 million never made it from Austin to Houston.
I first heard something about a red sofa that cost an impressive amount of money soon after I started to cover the controversy at the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.
In the fall of 2012, just before Al Gilman's departure, MD Anderson officials cracked down on internal critics.
During our first conversation in the spring of 2012, Gilman said that he would go public unless he received assurances that CPRIT would retain its integrity after his departure.
In their op-ed piece, Gilman and Sharp stated what it would take to fix CPRIT's problems. That was the polite version of the Gilman Plan.The spoken version was more blunt: get rid of the “assholes” on the oversight board, jettison the administrators, then—maybe—CPRIT's credibility would be restored.
What were Texas politicians and CPRIT officials thinking as they were pounded by blistering letters of resignation?