Ethics and Safety Concerns at High Profile Cancer Center (MSKCC)
http://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=307012641
The disingenuousness that emanates from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is intermittently palpable.
This blog is not published by any current affiliate of MSKCC and does not imply that one should not seek appropriate medical attention from a qualified physician (at MSKCC or elsewhere). It does discuss egregious Conflicts of Interest/Ethics and Safety concerns at the Institute.
You or a loved one may have a cancer scare while the forces of commerce (profit and/or potential profit) may influence enrollment in a clinical trial (in variance with candidate efficacy). People who are guilty of such craven self servitude clearly know better.
The confluence of safety concerns/infractions/systemic and otherwise at MSKCC fostered by MSKCC's Facilities Team and their Confederates (Contractors, Organizations) does affect/effect employee / community safety and stands to affect and has likely effected (and could impeach the efficacy of) reaction conditions relative to clinical trial candidates created and tested at Sloan and elsewhere.
Sloan received ~ $ 236 million in Covid relief in 2021, purchased ~ $ 500 million in prime NYC real estate in 2022, [(coincidentally close to the amount they claim to have been in the black that year!) will they write the difference off as a loss [while wordsmithing it as "reducing leased space" (i.e. real estate purchases funded by Covid relief taxpayer dollar$)]?], has conflict of interest / bioethics issues, dispatched ~ 300+ selfless employees (apparently per word on the street including a pharmacist within a year of retirement) [wasn’t the purpose of Covid-relief so businesses could maintain employees?], plans to displace a few hundred faculty (housing) and replace that housing with what cb8m refers to as the MSK Pavilion, which is adjacent to a lab Sloan built and knowingly didn’t install ductwork controls in, misstated the facts (lied) on multiple occasions relative to environmental health and safety (EHS) issues, including those that affect employee and community safety and reaction conditions (that stand to impeach the credibility of the research conducted at Sloan, including reaction conditions for translational [lab to clinic] initiatives)
https://www.beckershospital...
New York City-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center saw a swing from a $235.1 operating gain in 2021 to a 2022 operating loss of $248.1 million.
In fy 2021 mskcc received 236 million in covid relief from the US govt [Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funding]. ...
https://www.fitchratings.co...
in fy2022 mskcc purchased 500 million in nyc prime real estate, including in a building that formerly housed Madoff’s iniquities.
https://www.crainsnewyork.c...
https://nypost.com/2022/09/...
https://therealdeal.com/new...
https://therealdeal.com/new...
236 - 500= -264
Once one-time costs were taken into consideration — reducing leased space [i.e. purchasing $500 million in prime NYC real estate after receiving ~ $236 million in Covid relief aid from the US gov’t?] and a reduction in the workforce [dispatching ~ 300 selfless employees who could have worked in the for profit sector?] "These efforts, including the one-time reorganization costs [see above?], will generate future savings and enable MSK to continue to provide excellent patient care," [which is sadly correlated with incumbent or potential revenue streams] the report said.
[comments added above in brackets]
Was the Covid relief a grant or loan? If a loan was it forgiven? So the US gov’t and our taxes helped pay for Sloan’s NYC prime real estate purchases? Weren't Covid aid abusers prosecuted for using Covid relief for luxury (and real estate) purchases?
https://www.justice.gov/opa...
https://www.justice.gov/opa...
Sloan’s recently re-kindled MSK Pavilion Initiative seeks to repurpose a space currently used for faculty housing as operating room space.
That building is adjacent to the Rockefeller Research Laboratories (RRL)
At RRL one lab was situated above an animal facility. MSKCC Facilities Management knowingly did not install ductwork controls in the building and there were chronic safety lapses relative to a cross contamination (including, but not limited to putrid smells that were not local to the floor, and high caliber researchers complaining of odors in fume hoods of chemicals not being experimented with). Employees were chronically exposed to airborne exudates from the animal facility in addition to the putrid odors emanating from the floor below. When complaints were lodged, Facilities would send an engineer who would smirk at complainants. Subsequently it was learned (from an outside contractor) that ductwork controls were never installed properly in RRL and after that the smirks from Facilities employees segued to sneers when safety concerns were lodged, while evaluations of those who rightfully reported EHS issues segued from being a “very capable employee” to “not being a team player” or worse. Multiple people on the floor experienced chronic breathing problems. There was a known cross contamination phenomena via fume hoods where researchers would smell chemicals that were not being worked on, on the floor or in the lab. During a chemical spill and permeation caused by MSK Facilities that required a building evacuation and FDNY response Safety accusingly stated “you didn’t call the fire department, did you”? [the FDNY response was due to an automatically triggered alarm] (they were more concerned with non addressment, than employee and community safety). An inaccurate assuagement statement understating the severity of the incident, signed by the head of Safety, but possibly ghost written by others was issued after the event. When the veracity of the inaccurate statement was rightfully challenged, a senior manager from MSKCC Facilities, warned that first hand witnesses to the event “upset a lot of people” when mentioning that OSHA would be contacted, and so safety concerns were eventually reported to OSHA … https://www.osha.gov/ords/i.... There were intermittent, yet chronic water leaks through live electrical light fixtures in drop ceilings. C-14 Chemistry laboratory Certificate of Fitness holder(s) were concerned about a spark, fire, or explosion hazard, yet when apprised by other researchers that this leak phenomena also occurred on other floors, given that we knew we could not trust the MSK Facilities team, it was realized there was a possibility that the leaks were from conduits that dispersed filtered water used somewhat ubiquitously for aqueous experiments. If that was true the credibility of filtered / purified water/aqueous reaction conditions, notwithstanding Bernoulli’s principle, would be compromised and possibly impeached, standing to affect Sloan’s Intellectual Property portfolio.
When intrepid cancer patients or their proxies contacted the lab following the publication in the lay press (the WSJ) information relative to research conducted at Sloan on a promising new drug possibility, the author of this comment was instructed by a non-clinician Administrative Manager (AM) to withhold/embargo known information relative to the availability of a clinical trial candidate created by a (Big Pharma) competitor and being tested at Sloan. The clinical trial on the in-house candidate had not yet started at Sloan. When the non clinician was asked to clarify her biologically challenged tack, the non clinician stated “ours are better than theirs”, a decision that was not hers to make. When this was reported to a research colleague the author of this comment was told that although the tack was morally wrong [reprehensible] it was technically not illegal. However, because Sloan could lose its license to conduct clinical trials the event would be swept under the rug, and that is what Sloan did. Subsequently, the author of this comment was told by another research colleague that the PI (Principal Investigator, a non-clinician) attempted to leverage a clinician overseeing the clinical trial for the by then commenced in-house candidate clinical trial to continue enrolling patients in variance with the clinician’ s intuition relative to drug candidate efficacy. Large milestone dependent (on completion vs cessation of a clinical trial phase) royalty payments were in play at the time. The clinical trial overseeing physician has since moved to another position, in another city. https://www.massgeneral.org....
The lab [whose non clinician AM attempted to instruct a coworker to embargo information of an external competitors clinical trial conducted at Sloan] applied for and received a special translational grant to help facilitate bringing the in-house candidate forward to the level of palatability of a biotech or big pharma partner. The NIH conduit for that grant was subsequently rewarded with SAB status with the biotech that picked up the in-house candidate.
https://dtp.cancer.gov/time...
Pat Skarulis and Ed Mahoney were involved in the non addressment of bioethics and environmental health and safety concerns at Sloan.
It is noted that Jensen and Razi had curiously short tenures as ctos (or whatever appellation the position was granted) post Skarulis. Any attempts to expunge forensically available digital evidence of EHS, or coi/bioethics anomalies and/or infractions would likely have been accomplished with the knowledge of the cto.
Claus Jensen [2019 salary 552,000], chief digital officer and head of technology, had a curiously short tenure at Sloan before absconding. https://www.fiercehealthcar...
Atti Razi, also had a curiously short tenure as CIO at Sloan https://www.beckershospital...
More recently … https://www.propublica.org/... ... members of Sloan’s leadership have exhibited poor judgment relative to conflict of interest / bioethics issues.
The Pathology chief … https://www.mskcc.org/cance... ... seemingly attempted to leverage the entire cumulative pathology intellectual property of Sloan in an ai company without input re sharing the earning potential with incumbent or past member pathologists. https://www.nytimes.com/201...
Sloan recently announced … https://www.mskcc.org/profi... ... that Anaeze Offodile II, MD, MPH, would assume the position of new Chief Strategy Officer (Effective 5/1/2023) a double board-certified physician with clinical expertise in oncologic reconstruction, a health services researcher with a focus on alternative payment models and care redesign, and a healthcare administrator with management experience in academia — leads strategy efforts and care transformation initiatives at MSK by continuing to develop the core infrastructure, management systems, and processes for enterprise strategy and business development.
The author of this comment cannot imagine anyone, given Sloan's nonpareil raison d'etre, objecting to the expansion of Sloan and even the repurposing of Covid aid to facilitate that initiative. The caveat is sadly that Sloan has not been an honest player relative to addressment of environmental health and safety and conflict of interest (coi) / bioethics issues, that the amount of "care" (both figuratively and literally) Sloan is willing to provide is correlated with incumbent and potential revenue streams. When bioethics / coi and EHS issues are rightfully brought forth, Sloan has a history of merely conjuring and synchronizing its thinly veiled cover stories. Be w(e)ary and proceed carefully.
We welcome Dr. Offodile and wish him well. We trust Dr. Vickers to lead from the front, and wish him well. It is hoped that with Sloan's expansions that members of demographics who previously would only difficultly access high tiered cancer care might be able to do so more easily.
Cb8 and the MSK Pavilion committee chairs have (and will be) apprised of these concerns, which are also noted here ... https://onstealinghope.blog....
We are not stating and have not stated that there is or has been a systemic initiative at Sloan to enroll patients in clinical trials of compounds whose efficacy is known to be suspect. We are and have stated that there have been piecemeal instances where people who clearly know better drop their guard and act in a cravenly self serving manner
We were first exposed to EHS lapses [cross contaminations (fume hoods and ducts), chronic breathing issues (ductwork controls never installed), water leaking through live electrical light fixtures (seemingly through the hot ballasts of fluourescent light fixtures [given that we knew ductwork controls were not installed, we were concerned about explosion hazards])] and concerns when attempting to address acute and/or chronic issues. We subsequently learned some of these were systemic, that Sloan knew about them and were aggressive relative to suppressing addressment and dissemination of information (even though dissemination could help solve the problems). relative to conflict of interest/bioethics issues, we can't imagine anyone not wishing Sloan well relative to fair profits earned correlated with brilliant and seminal work, but we expect them not to cheat. Sadly these issues jell into a synopsis worthy of a Michael Lewis, Michael Chrichton or Robin Cook tale.
Once again, Sloan 'conducted its own investigation' [how's that been working out? it often works out with lots of wordsmithing from the propaganda (PA) department (e.g. prescription drug dealing in 'the basement' but they don't let you know that the General Stores are 'in the basement'; 'condensation' vs. flooding (from compromised / unsatisfactory joints connecting purified water conduits)] ... but did not notify authorities ... prescription drugs being sold in the basement by non medical staff ... the hospitals general stores is in the basement ... were general stores and or patient safety compromised?
https://nypost.com/2006/02/26/state-probes-hosp-drug-dealing-ring
He got caught when his bosses realized he had ordered toner for printer models the hospital didn't even use. ... he currently lists 'fire safety' as his profession on another social media site
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/05/toner-thief-got-1-5m-in-potato-chip-bags
Memorial Sloan-Kettering worker admits to embezzling $1M (nypost.com)
Beloved surgeon Jeanne Petrek just happened to be run over by an ambulance whilst escorting her own Mom to elder care ...
Shocking Accident Fells Beloved Breast Cancer Surgeon Jeanne... : Oncology Times (lww.com)
https://nypost.com/2022/09/06/memorial-sloan-kettering-scoops-up-piece-of-lipstick-building/
https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2022/09/13/sloan-kettering-pays-185m-for-ues-medical-center/
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-takes-action-against-covid-19-fraud
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nevada-man-charged-using-covid-relief-funds-buy-house
https://www.osha.gov/ords/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=307012641.
https://www.massgeneral.org/doctors/20358/david-spriggs.
https://www.propublica.org/series/sloan-kettering-cancer-centers-crisis
https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/doctors/david-klimstra
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/health/memorial-sloan-kettering-cancer-paige-ai.html
https://www.mskcc.org/profile/anaeze-offodile-ii
https://onstealinghope.blogspot.com.
Leadership salaries and compensation, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, from Crains
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/assets/pulse_extra/pulse_extra_050917.html
Sloan does very important work. We want Sloan to be our Hero,
our Beacon, our City on a Hill, e.g. as in the case of attempting to cure
leukemia, with cautious optimism:
an initiative dear to the author of this comment, as his parents’ first child succumbed to complications from childhood leukemia following treatment at Sloan.
Sadly, cancer is big business. When Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) and Ethics issues are rightfully brought forth Sloan merely "conducts its own investigation", conjures and synchronizes its cover stories and attempts to intimidate those who rightfully bring forth concerns.
Sloan’s proposed new building (announced 03/2023) on York Avenue is adjacent to the Rockefeller Research Laboratories. Sloan built that laboratory and knowingly did not install ductwork controls in a building strewn with toxins and whose windows could not be opened. Sloan misstated the facts (lied) following a chlorine/bromine gas permeation event that required an fdny response and building evacuation. Experimental Reaction conditions have been compromised at Sloan due to faulty infrastructure (e.g. cross contamination/recirculation of expunged gases in fume hoods), there was concern that systemic water leaks through live electric light fixtures, in addition to being a safety hazard, were from purified water distribution conduits (if this were true, the credibility of aqueous experimental reactions in the building could be impeached, compromising Sloan’s IP/Intellectual Property portfolio).
The disingenuousness that emanates from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is intermittently palpable.
A Chief Financial Officer [Gutnick, 2019 salary (available along with other MSKCC top earners on line at
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/html-page/767716
], 1.5 million] of MSKCC has stated (paraphrased): Sloan is … pursuing a systemic approach to reducing expenses and increasing revenues. … this effort involves … policy decisions that seek to strike a … balance between providing service and squandering resources. One example of this is discouraging terminally ill patients from seeking initial treatment or second opinions from the cancer center … the admission of such patients is counterproductive for a facility like Sloan-Kettering.
https://onstealinghope.blogspot.com/
Memorial Sloan Kettering paid $1.4 million in severance to three former execs in 2020. The largest payment went to Patricia Skarulis [2019 salary, greater than 1 million], MSK's longtime chief information officer, who the tax form says left in 2019. Avice Meehan [2019 salary 595,000], the system's former chief communication officer, also got a payout.
Claus Jensen [2019 salary 552,000], chief digital officer and head of technology, had a curiously short tenure at Sloan before absconding.
Atti Razi, also had a curiously short tenure as CIO at Sloan
In fy 2021 mskcc received 236 million in covid relief from the US govt [Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funding]. ...
in fy2022 mskcc purchased 500 million in nyc prime real estate, including in a building that formerly housed Madoff’s iniquities.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/06/memorial-sloan-kettering-scoops-up-piece-of-lipstick-building/
https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2022/09/13/sloan-kettering-pays-185m-for-ues-medical-center/
Sloan affiliates have been privileged biotech / pharma insiders:
https://ariadwindfall.blogspot.com
Ed Mahoney [2019 salary greater than 1 million] is the Senior VP, Facilities Management. It is members of the Facilities Team that attempt to leverage (threaten) employees who rightfully bring forth Facilities and EHS shortcomings that stand to effect and are likely effecting employee and community safety, and stand to impeach the credibility of reaction conditions of experiments conducted at Sloan. Sloan’s slogan has been: MSKCC, The Best Cancer Care Anywhere … apparently, as long as it’s consistent with Sloan’s revenue stream and/or the potential stock portfolio of powerful employees. Times are trying and hard for everyone.
When the author of this note worked at Sloan he was instructed by a non-clinician administrative manager to embargo known information relative to the availability of clinical trial candidates created by competitors and tested at Sloan, when the clinical trial on the candidate created at Sloan had not yet commenced. When asked for clarification, and if the non-clinician was instructing him to deceive desperate cancer patients or their proxies he was told “ours are better than theirs”. When this was reported to a colleague researcher at Sloan the author of this note was told that although that tack was [reprehensible] it was technically not illegal, but since Sloan could lose their license to conduct clinical trials any report of this incident would be denied. Subsequently the author of this note was told by another research colleague that after the clinical trial on the in house candidate had commenced, that the Principal Investigator attempted to leverage the clinician overseeing the trial to continue enrollment in the phase (in variance with the clinician’s better judgment relative to drug candidate efficacy). Large milestone dependent royalty payments contingent upon completion vs. cessation of a clinical trial phase were in play. The clinician overseeing the clinical trial has since moved, to another state. Ed Mahoney and Pat Skarulis were directly involved in covering up these incidents.
The tech officers who took over after Skarulis (Jensen and Razi) would likely have known about any attempts to purge digital records relative to EHS and ethics concerns at Sloan.
Cancer Health Disparities abatement initiatives will hopefully allow constituents of demographics who previously would only difficultly access high level cancer therapeutics to do so more easily
The confluence of safety concerns/infractions/systemic and otherwise at MSKCC fostered by MSKCC's Facilities Team and their Confederates (Contractors, Organizations) does affect/effect employee / community safety and stands to affect and has likely effected (and could impeach the efficacy of) reaction conditions relative to clinical trial candidates created and tested at Sloan and elsewhere.
You or a loved one may have a cancer scare while the forces of commerce (profit and/or potential profit) may influence enrollment in a clinical trial (in variance with candidate efficacy). People who are guilty of such craven self servitude clearly know better.
Sloan has a not for profit status, but it is not St. Judes.
MSKCCheats.
With a new administration (Professor Vickers), Sloan deserves to move ahead with this initiative. We trust Dr. Vickers and wish him well. However, we must be w(e)ary, and proceed with caution.
http://onstealinghope.blogspot.com … This blog’s author’s parents’ first child died of complications of childhood leukemia at Memorial Hospital two years before his (the blog author’s) birth. Children afflicted with similar diseases today stand a good chance of survival due to in no small part to the efforts of MSKCC and like-minded institutions. The stated mission of MSKCC is nonpareil. There are instances of brilliance and selflessness at MSKCC. There are, however, instances of craven self-servitude committed by those who clearly know better. There is an intermittently palpable disingenuousness that emanates from Sloan-Kettering, as Sloan has not been an honest player relative to Environmental Health & Safety [EH&S] and Bioethics / Conflicts of Interest concerns, especially when presenting cases for expansion and leveraging employees who rightfully report problems. The author of this blog was a C-14 Chemistry Laboratory Certificate of Fitness Holder at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and has witnessed Sloan Kettering misstating the facts (lying) on many occasions relative to [chronic, acute, local, systemic and emergent] Environmental Health and Safety Problems that affect employee/community safety and reaction conditions of experiments conducted at the Institute. EH&S concerns relative to MSKCC have been reported to cb8M.com (Community Board 8, Manhattan), OSHA, etc., firstly confidentially and subsequently, publicly. While at Sloan the author of this blog was instructed by a non-clinician colleague to mislead cancer patient(s) (or their proxies) as to the availability of clinical trial candidates created by competitors and tested at Sloan. It has been reported that non-clinicians have attempted to leverage clinical trial overseeing physicians to continue enrollment in clinical trials in variance with clinician inclination. Large milestone royalty payments [contingent on completion vs. cessation of a clinical trial phase] are in play. When reported to colleagues at Sloan, the author of this blog was told that as Sloan could lose its license to conduct clinical trials, these (and similar) bioethically challenged tacks would be swept under the rug. Sloan merely conjures and synchronizes its cover stories when rightfully confronted with complaints. Avice Meehan is the Vice President, Communications and Chief Communications Officer, MSKCC. Edward Mahoney is MSKCC’s VP, Facilities Management. The Chief Financial Officer of MSKCC has stated (paraphrased): Sloan is … pursuing a systemic approach to reducing expenses and increasing revenues. … this effort involves … policy decisions that seek to strike a … balance between providing service and squandering resources. One example of this is discouraging terminally ill patients from seeking initial treatment or second opinions from the cancer center … the admission of such patients is counterproductive for a facility like Sloan-Kettering. Unfortunately, you or a loved one may have a cancer scare, and after hurdling administrative / insurance obstacles (being fortunate enough to obtain an appointment for treatment) the forces of commerce (profit and/or potential profit) may influence enrollment in a clinical trial (in variance with candidate efficacy). People who are guilty of such craven self-servitude clearly know better. Sloan’s slogan is: MSKCC, The Best Cancer Care Anywhere … apparently, as long as it’s consistent with Sloan’s revenue stream and/or the potential stock portfolio of powerful employees.
msk safety problems
Laboratory for Bioorganic Chemistry
Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer CenterTo: NIOSH, NY OSHA (Compliance Control Officer), NYFD Deputy Chief Inspector (Lab Unit),
EPA (CEPP)From: C-14 (Chemistry Laboratory) Certificate of Fitness Holder, Sloan-Kettering InstituteTo whom it may concern,I am a C-14 (Chemistry Laboratory) Certificate of Fitness Holder at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s, Sloan-Kettering Institute-Rockefeller Research Laboratory (RRL) Building (430 E. 67th Street). In light of a recently announced fine to Sloan-Kettering by the EPA (apparently relative to mislabeled medical waste) and alleged ‘threats’ to ‘individuals or civic leader(s)’ (local ‘Our Town’ Newspaper, relative to Sloan’s contentious laboratory building initiative), I feel it appropriate to call your attention to (and submit for the record a report of) intermittent, yet recurrent chronic, un-rectified systemic infrastructure shortcomings at the (RRL) Building that stand to affect (and are likely affecting) the environmental health and safety (EH&S) of myself, my co-workers and by extrapolation, the surrounding Community. I do this for my own protection and for the protection of my former, current and future colleagues and colleague-charges. Rectification of these safety issues may warrant your organization’s investigation (e.g.: re air quality analysis, fire safety, and architectural records relative to known ductwork [and other infrastructure] problems) and/or oversight as these conditions continue to re-manifest themselves, intermittently, to date. Prior to the composition (and submission) of this note, I have contacted the proposed recipients’ [office(s) and/or organization(s)] and have received counsel as to where to submit my query. The goal of this query is to facilitate a mechanism whereby chronic problems that I’ve witnessed, or that have been reported to me by circumspect colleagues, in RRL over a ten-year period are addressed in a satisfactory (as opposed to a superficial and/or stopgap) manner and solved.
I have worked at MSKCC for approximately ~12+ years and have not missed one day of work (that has not been made up in a timely manner). Since 1993 I have worked on RRL 13. I have either witnessed (or received reports from circumspect colleagues of) systemic shortcomings in the Facilities Management and the infrastructure of the RRL building that have allowed for Sloan’s employees (and by extrapolation, the surrounding Community) to be exposed to acutely dangerous as well as to chronically negligent environmental health and safety conditions. Below, I outline but a few examples and briefly summarize the intransigence, hostility of (and misstatement of facts by) MSKCC’s Facilities Management Administration, the Safety Department and their confederates when they are asked to investigate and / or address these environmental health and safety issues.Symptoms of systemic problems are manifested in the form of and include, but are not limited to:*Cross contamination and/or recirculation of supposedly evacuated substances via faulty ductwork (that was never installed properly), drains, improperly sealed floors/ceilings/(and unused [covered (e.g.: by installed walls), yet not sealed] drains) and elevator shafts [(a) between rooms on RRL 13, (b) between RRL 13 and the animal facility on RRL 12, and (c) between RRL 13 and other RRL floors] occurs intermittently, yet is unabated and is consistent with exposure of workers to fungus, mold, animal secretion exudates and organic and volatile, toxic (and otherwise harmful) compounds, chemicals, solvents, biohazards, radioactive-substances, carcinogens and disease causing microorganisms and/or pathogens.*The animal facility cross-contamination and/or ‘seepage’ also occurs on other floors in RRL and is intermittently prevalent in the lavatories.*Reports of cross contamination between supposedly mutually exclusive chemical fume hoods by extremely circumspect, high caliber Ph.D. researchers has in the past been dismissed by MSKCC Facilities Management Administrators as ‘impossible.’ Germane to this issue is that there is a ‘radiation room’ on the floor that apparently utilizes fume hoods.*Water leaks intermittently from the ceiling, from ducts and/or (distilled?) water conduits in RRL 1326, the NMR Core Facility, a room with organic and volatile solvents and cascades over, through (and at times remains settled stagnantly in) live fluorescent light fixtures. This ‘phenomena’ also occurs at other locations on RRL13. Initial reports of this phenomena resulted in Sloan-Facilities workers stating that we’d have to ‘wait a few weeks’ to address the problem, which continues, intermittently, to date.*Although I have not missed one day of work in ~12+ years at Sloan I have experienced bouts of severe, chronic bronchitis, whose incidence(s) correlate positively with the HVAC/safety problems discussed in this note. If one can smell the airborne exudates(s) from the animal facility/cages (e.g.: putrid wood-shaving beds, urine, feces, etc.) one is also smelling and being exposed to and absorbing any airborne biohazards, toxins, carcinogens, teratogens, pathogens [including airborne dander from experimental animals treated with experimental, often toxic substances] etc., concomitant and associated with the animal facility environment. [Having worked with (nude) mice as but one component of a post-baccalaureate research laboratory technician position with a lab focused on monoclonal antibodies at another Research Institute I am not completely naive relative to the environmental, health and safety concerns and limitations affiliated with a research animal facility].*Other health related concerns/events that correlate positively with RRL infrastructure (HVAC?) shortcomings include the fact that an otherwise healthy postdoctoral had once collapsed on the floor, requiring plastic surgery to address his resultant injury. Another researcher on the floor had been diagnosed with pneumonia. Earlier, 4 coworkers missed as much as one week each, while suffering from severe respiratory infections. In addition, another Investigator suffers from ear, nose and throat complications that intermittently require medical attention. This researcher’s office has intermittent, yet unabated, air circulation problems. If not (minimally, partially) causative, the air circulation problems on the floor can only exacerbate this Investigator’s ENT problem.*Growth-media (supposedly unused on RRL 13) and therefore microbes growing in it that may become airborne, whose source is unknown but may include biohazard hood systems elsewhere in the building (but apparently not on RRL 13), and whose conduit source may include drains, ducts and elevator shafts, is intermittently sensed (smelled) on RRL 13.*The Sloan Building Services attendant assigned to RRL13, on more than one occasion, has apprised me of a film of unknown composition that regularly settle(s) atop the bookcases in RRL 1301, an administrative office with known ductwork problems.*Chemicals (that smell like either pyridines (a known teratogen) and/or acid chlorides or chloroformates are intermittently smelled on RRL 13 (RRL 1301 [an administrative office] and RRL13′s North and East Corridors) even though these chemicals are supposedly used on RRL 13 solely in the fume hoods, are stored in freezers in the RRL Central Core Lab, and one cannot smell the chemicals in the aisles of the laboratories when they are sensed (smelled) in the administrative office and/or corridor.*In the past, when I reported chemical smells similar to those mentioned above in the hallways and offices on the floor, the head of MSKCC Safety invoked the tea kettle-pot, mutual-accusation conundrum. The fact that chemicals are used in supposedly functioning fume hoods and stored in freezers in the RRL Core and Labs, does not account for why chemicals are smelled in administrative offices and halls where there is apt (on any given day) to be little, or no, circulation.The HVAC problems have re-manifested in the form of ductwork that was intermittently down for extended periods of time in RRL 1301, as well as in the South East quadrant of RRL 13, where it once it caused clear overheating and apparent burning. The latter was reported to MSKCC Facilities Management and Lab Operations. The following day, it was reported to me by another COF (Certificate of Fitness) holder on RRL that the NYFD (fire department) responded to an alarm in RRL and that RRL 13 employees were warned over the intercom to “prepare to evacuate.”At one point the Rockefeller Research Laboratory needed to be evacuated following a chemical spill on RRL 14 and perfusion of an irritant (that was initially described as ‘chlorine’ or ‘bromine’ by the circumspect, high caliber Ph.D. chemists on the floor who were wary of and alarmed by the irritant because ‘no one in the lab’ was ‘working with chlorine or bromine’ at the time [at that point in time there was also a concern on the floor relative to cross-contamination between supposedly mutually exclusive fume hoods, of which the 'chlorine' was possibly another example of cross-contamination]) on to the 13th floor. MSKCC, in a Memo distributed to all employees via email from the head of Safety (but possibly co-written, edited, approved, ghosted or issued via edict by an administrator, administrators or the Public Affairs office) neither of whom, unlike myself, was (or were) on site when this situation developed, dismissed the event. Sloan would have you believe that gas wafted through two closed doors in the emergency stairwell and through a third (a southern) laboratory door, jumped over open space in the south end of a lab (where it could not be smelled or otherwise sensed) and settled mid room in front of and below multiple, segregated and isolated hoods, ducts and drains. Sloan subsequently dismissed as ‘impossible’ the likelihood that the chlorine-like irritant perfused through the air ducts, drains and fume hoods even though Sloan admitted once again soon after the incident (via posted announcement that duct work controls would be replaced throughout the building) that the duct work in the building did not work properly. [Previously, it had been reported to me on more than one occasion (e.g.: from a contractor who worked on the RRL 13 retrofit and an MSKCC Safety Officer) that the ductwork had unbelievably, but assuredly, knowingly not been installed properly by MSKCC. At that point in time although Sloan knew of this situation, MSKCC had not rectified the problem.] Following the evacuation a senior administrator from MSKCC Facilities (its Director) attempted to intimidate me (“warning” me that I “upset a lot of people”) when I challenged the veracity of the MSKCC inaccurate assuagement. [Accurate reportage at that point in time could have drawn unwanted attention to RRL's HVAC problems and the then known fact that the ductwork was not installed (and/or functioning) properly]. Though others may experience post-intimidation amnesia, I feel that unit integrity also equates with unit safety.
Subsequently, a smoke condition (secondary to a car fire in the RRL basement-garage) developed and rapidly increased in intensity on RRL13. The fire and the resultant smoke condition resulted in the evacuation of RRL. At no point in time did smoke alarms sound on RRL13. In variance with past requests, fire alarms are still not located in laboratories on RRL 13, rooms where the majority of workers on RRL 13 carry out their assigned duties. The fire alarms that are located on the floor are (mostly) inaudible in the laboratory rooms. In deference to MSKCC Lab-Ops and Safety, after this event and in variance with past (previously discussed) safety incidents, Lab-Ops asked for a ‘no holds barred’ report of the incident from our (RRL13 Fire Wardens’) perspective and we have provided such a report to Sloan-Lab-Ops (that may be pooled, weighed and compared with other reports [from local perspectives] of the incident).The combination of faulty ductwork, improperly sealed and porous floors (that render moot and impeaches the credibility of supposedly functioning HVAC/duct systems), ceilings, and drainage systems is a particularly pernicious cocktail considering silica, radioactive substances, cyanide, pyridines, nitrogen and many other toxins, poisons and carcinogens are used on RRL 13 and that innumerable pathogens, biohazards and other disease facilitating microbes are present in the animal facility below (and/or throughout the RRL building). The material safety data sheets for silica, nitrogen and pyridine reveal but three justifications for concern [e.g.: A few years ago a worker apparently died of asphyxiation due to nitrogen gas exposure (secondary to a liquid nitrogen bleed) in a nearby medical facility that housed an MRI magnet enclosed in a room with limited air circulation, not unlike the NMR magnet (which is cooled via liquid nitrogen in a manner similar to an MRI) in the RRL 13 Core Facility, that is on a floor with known ductwork and air circulation problems]. The MSK Facilities Management Department or those instructing them, operating in conjunction with them, or under its aegis has a history of doing (or overseeing) poor/negligent work, allowing for (and indifference to) exposure of Sloan’s employees to dangerous conditions, of not being on top of the infrastructure of the current RRL (research) building, of conjuring and synchronizing cover stories following safety incidents, of attempting to bully, threaten and/or attempt to intimidate employees so that they do not accurately report safety incidents or problems, of refusing to investigate (and denial when confronted with) these problems in an attempt to cover-up and avoid accurate reporting of environmental-health related problems and shortcomings that
MSK-Facilities is responsible for causing) – thereby neglecting, jeopardizing and disregarding Employee (and Community) Safety [e.g.: a NYC Public School is located immediately adjacent to RRL and a private Pre-School has been located in the adjacent building, in the space formerly occupied by the MSKCC Library's basement]. I have listed but a few examples. Your organization(s) may consider that aspects related to the interface between Sloan/RRL infrastructure and Worker’ and Community Health may warrant investigation, monitoring and/or rectification, if appropriate — especially considering that the Sloan-Facilities-Management Team is currently entrusted with oversight of the construction of an otherwise eminently warranted, imminently necessary and appropriate new research tower, on a nearby residential block (whose construction required a variance in NYC zoning laws following contentious debate within the rightfully concerned and apprehensive, adjacent Community).Though one might expect Sloan to dismiss the allegations presented in this note as statistically insignificant, coincidental, untrue, or venial (e.g.: by dismissing systemic, chronic EH&S problems as merely an occasionally malfunctioning thermostat), the EH&S concerns are accurate. I know that I am not the only person who has posited reports relative to EH&S and/or air circulation problems on RRL 13 with MSKCC Facilities, Safety or Lab-Ops. I don’t think the Facilities Management team would have the temerity to act as cavalierly as they have relative to EH&S issues without tacit/implicit approval or explicit instructions from (past or present) senior administrators at Sloan [some of whom may have at one point in time been naive to, have been kept in the dark (possibly, so as to be able to seek indemnity or invoke plausible deniability as to culpability, or merely due to deception at the Facilities' end of the operation) and/or inherited the EH&S problems from (a) prior administration(s)].
Although a catastrophic accident at RRL is feasible, I intuit what is more likely to occur are unnecessary health complications to Sloan-Employees concomitant with long-term chronic exposure to hazards that would not have occurred if the safety problems mentioned in this note were (or are) addressed in a timely manner by Sloan. During my tenure on RRL 13 I have witnessed a situation where MSKCC Facilities, while attempting to cover up these issues is dictating (rather than following sound) safety policy. In variance with the above, I do know that Sloan is capable of sporting a respectable veneer (and of dotting their ‘i’s’ and crossing their ‘t’s') when inspected re health and safety issues by outside agencies (e.g.: EPA, NYFD).
Based partially on talk amongst employees, it would not surprise me if Sloan is dealing with these and/or other known systemic environmental, health and safety infrastructure shortcomings in RRL via clandestine, unannounced plans to treat the new research tower being constructed as a ‘replacement’ building (for RRL), rather than for its stated purposes of decompression and expansion (and replacement of other (much older) MSKCC laboratories, such as the Kettering Laboratory). If this hypothesis were true, Sloan could purge RRL of all of its researchers and move them into the new building thereby granting Sloan the opportunity to gut RRL, [and some have stated that RRL may be] convert(ed it) into coincidentally lucrative outpatient facilities, while at the same time coincidentally destroying evidence of unnecessary chronic exposure of its unknowing, innocent and naive employees (and by extrapolation the rightfully suspicious and wary, yet naive surrounding Community) to health hazards.
A noxious ‘forever loop’ wherein RRL exhaust is somehow re-circulated through an intake vent (possibly as the result of poor design and/or oversight during the RRL 13 retrofit that neglected to account for pre-existing exhaust and / or intake vents) may be a contributing factor to these problems. Following the ‘chlorine’ incident and building evacuation in 2000, it was reported to me by circumspect colleagues that the MSKCC Facilities Management team considered such a ‘forever loop’ (of [at that point in time] unknown origin) to be a possible contributing factor in that incident, prior to MSKCC-Facilities’ dismissal of a ‘forever-loop’ factor in that incident, and otherwise attempting to sweep what actually did occur under the rug.
I have also heard that RRL 13 is not the only floor where workers have experienced severe bronchial problems. It would not surprise me if Sloan (if and when bullying and / or intimidation prove unsuccessful) attempts to purchase the silence of those who experience breathing problems that are positively correlated with RRL HVAC problems, assuaging an individual, but not addressing the problem’s cause or solving the underlying problem(s). As stated elsewhere in this note, I know first hand that Sloan attempts to win through intimidation silence relative to accurate reporting of safety related problems.Stagnant water (such as that which accumulates secondary to the ceiling-leak-’phenomena’), combined with ductwork problems and an endless source of exposure to microorganisms may constitute a legionella or pneumonia (causative agent) hospitable environment and it may be appropriate to consider the installation of ultraviolet germicidal lights in the ductwork systems, similar to those apparently studied in The Lancet, (2003, 362 (9898), 1785), if such systems are not already in use and are not in variance with intermittent contact with volatile chemicals that may coincidentally ‘seep’ into the ductwork.My parents’ first child died of complications from childhood leukemia at Memorial Hospital two years before I was born. A child with this affliction today stands a good chance of survival due in no small part to the therapeutic advances fomented at Sloan and other like-minded Institutions. Sloan’s mission is nonpareil and I realize the need to be circumspect, especially in these post-9/11 ‘trying times’ when the scope of Sloan’s high caliber mission is magnified (and your organizations rightfully need to be focused on external safely threats) — all the more reason that the health and safety of Sloan’s (mostly) selfless employees (and the surrounding Community) not be held hostage by Sloan’s Facilities Management team. No one, myself included, wants any lab downtime. However, Sloan should not be absolved from addressing EH&S matters such as those discussed in this note (which although intermittent are unabated) in a timely manner.Although I am a ‘Certificate-of-Fitness-Holder’, the Administrative Manager (AM) on RRL 13 has in the past counseled me to not report safety issues (to let another ‘professional’ address Safety matters). Although she is a full-time employee, the AM is regularly on the Sloan campus only ~ 50% time and focuses on patent accruals (and other curious, [oft personal] finance-related matters) and is therefore exposed to any health hazards secondary to any RRL infrastructure and safety shortcomings but a fraction of the time of true full-time employees who are on the SKI campus 100% time (or more). The AM’s ([oft personal] financially guided) focus may constitute a conflict of interest with (and be in variance with) any necessary and / or appropriate rectification of safety problems that may (unfortunately, but possibly, necessarily, temporarily, or partially) interrupt the laboratory’s workflow.I hope these thoughts are of interest to you and germane to your organization’s purview. I may be reached via the numbers listed below should your organization(s) seek clarification or wish me to elaborate further on these matters. If requested, I can point out exactly where the incidents and / or conditions reported and discussed in this note have (and continue intermittently to) occur(ed). As mentioned above, I feel it appropriate to posit these safety concerns in light of my responsibility to (and also so as to protect myself as well as) past, present and future colleagues and charges, especially considering [for what it's worth] the collective symbolic and physical investment in this Institution by my family [its blood (my brother's), sweat (mine) and tears (my parents')]. In the limit, your organization(s) will have on file an official lodging of these concerns relative to infrastructure shortcomings relative to environmental, health and safety issues at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center/SKI in RRL so that when they recur and resurface Sloan will not be able to duck and/or deny their existence or plead naiveté.Should you investigate these EH&S issues I do request that my name not be provided to Sloan (that I retain anonymity), so as to protect myself (in light of past attempts by Sloan to threaten / intimidate workers) and thank you, in advance, for considering investigation of these concerns.In sum, I am not saying that an imminently catastrophic situation exists at Sloan-RRL [although it would not surprise me if one were to occur] or that on any given day that all (or any) of the above-mentioned environmental health and safety related events and/or conditions occur. I am stating that in a building strewn with innumerable toxins, carcinogens, poisons, pathogens, disease facilitating microbes, radioactive substances and biohazards such as RRL (whose windows cannot be opened) that proper ventilation has not been provided, that systemically (and quite often) safety features have not worked properly and / or are rendered moot by other (correctable, yet uncorrected) means of cross contamination, seepage and/or possible re-circulation of chemicals (possibly or supposedly) previously evacuated or exhausted and that notwithstanding requests to rectify these problems, that they continue (albeit intermittently) un-checked to date. Stopgap or patchwork fixes have just not solved the problem(s) which are likely systemic in nature rather than curious anomalies that just happen to appear. The cumulative result is that the RRL building is intermittently and unnecessarily rendered a toxic firetrap and has been and continues to be an unnecessary source of chronic exposure of Sloan’s employees to dangerous substances. A seasonal ritual seems to have developed on RRL 13 wherein an MSKCC-Plant-Ops (Facilities) worker responds to verbal reports of dead air or temperature (heating/cooling) issues, is ‘surprised’ to discover the extent of RRL ductwork (-to-nowhere?-) problems and returns to RRL 13 tittering and smirking (and then attempts to humor those reporting the problems) – yet the problems discussed continue albeit intermittently: Water leaks through live light fixtures, animal facility cross contamination [the animal facility has since apparently been moved off campus] chemical smell(s) in hallways and administrative offices that have known ductwork and circulation problems, chemical smell(s) in the hallway / cross-contamination phenomena. Real, serious and chronic systemic infrastructure shortcomings that stand to affect (and are likely affecting) the health and safety of my coworkers and of myself have existed and continue to exist. These may warrant, minimally, investigation (e.g.: re air quality analysis, analysis of MSKCC employee health records relative to breathing problems in RRL, fire safety, architectural record investigation [though given that I've witnessed Sloan-Facilities misstating the facts and attempting to strong-arm the suppression of accurate reportage by first responders to past safety incidents, it would not surprise me if the credibility of Sloan's -architectural records is also impeached]) and possibly outside oversight and / or monitoring, especially given the predicted, severe flu seasons [e.g.: On RRL13, a floor that has known ductwork/air circulation problems, minimally 7 people on RRL13 have recently experienced maladies whose symptoms include severe upper respiratory and/or sinus infections and / or a high fever] and the trust the justifiably concerned surrounding Community places in Sloan via its Facility Management Team’s oversight of the construction of the new research tower.As stated in the introductory paragraph of this query, I have spoken with the offices of (most of) the proposed recipients of this note prior to its composition and submission (and received counsel as to where to submit the query). If the concerns addressed in this note do not fall under the aegis of your office, but do fall under the aegis of your organization, I’m hopeful that you’ll forward these concerns to the appropriate desk/department. If these concerns do not fall under the aegis of your organization, I apologize in advance for forwarding this to your office. Since these matters continue, intermittently, to date, if you have counsel as to where to legitimately pursue these concerns elsewhere (in a non-inflammatory way, whose end-goal is the investigation and rectification of the Safety problems [i.e. To provide insight towards the correction of these concerns, rather than to incite]) other than to those organizations and/or individuals on the enclosed recipient list, I would also appreciate your input.I would not submit this note relative to EH&S concerns at RRL/Sloan if these issues had been addressed and solved in a timely and satisfactory manner and not covered up by Sloan-Facilities, and if a high threshold and tolerance level on my part had not been eclipsed many times over by Sloan-Facilities’ shortcomings and attempts at intimidation during my 10+ years, while stationed on RRL 13. My intuition is that if these issues fall under the aegis of your organization(s) and if you investigate these concerns, that you will find extant, systemic safety problems and/or infractions and a trail of attempted deception relative to reporting of safety shortcomings in RRL in the past. I also intuit that those culpable will firstly deny the existence of any safety problems, and that if/and/when confronted with evidence of their existence those culpable will attempt to diminish its intensity, claim naiveté, plead indemnity and eventually claim that they were ‘only following’ instructions. Yet, while Sloan-Facilities was ducking and dodging (and tittering and smirking relative to) Safety shortcomings in RRL in the past, its employees (and its surrounding Community) have unnecessarily been exposed to hazards secondary to them. I have often felt that Sloan expects its workers to do them a favor (or to use a 1960′s term used on the television show ‘the Mod Squad’, to ‘solid’ them) by accepting these EH&S problems as merely an occupational hazard, since Sloan through its inaction clearly considers the systemic EH&S issues as no-big-deal (or ‘no-biggie’), resulting in their non-rectification. But while the Sloan-Facilities Team might expect Sloan’s workers to continue ‘soliding’ them for what they consider to be ‘no biggies’ the Facilities team continues to titter, smirk and otherwise sweep these problems under the rug. I have problems with that arrangement wherein Sloan’s employees are expected to continue ‘soliding’ Sloan, while Sloan is unnecessarily gassing, wafting, neglecting, and otherwise (possibly) poisoning its employees (and by extrapolation, the surrounding Community) especially when my coworkers, my colleague-charges and myself are on the short end of that arrangement, while Sloan’s EH&S neglect and detritus is apt to wind up in my (and our) lungs.Following a prompt from the MSKCC President to lobby NYC zoning/building officials (as MSKCC employees saw fit) relative to a contentious building initiative, I submitted a letter containing some of the concerns discussed in this note to some of the zoning/building commission members (and at that point in time requested that, that note not be circulated). However, to date, I have not submitted anything in writing to agencies that may have EH&S oversight. In addition, I have edited this note extensively, and have sent iterations via email to and from my personal email account. Accordingly, I would not be surprised if Sloan may have monitored my email account and is privy to the contents of this note and has accordingly updated the synchronization of their EH&S related cover stories.The admittedly critical tone of this note is proportional to the cumulative indifference, sloppiness, arrogance and attempts to suppress by intimidation legitimate reports of Safety shortcomings at MSKCC in RRL (whose end-goal is the rectification of such problems), with which Sloan and (members and administrators of) its Facilities Management team have conducted themselves relative to EH&S issues in RRL in the past. Accordingly, I submit this note without reservation in the hope that Sloan (and its Facilities team) might account for and rectify these safety concerns and issues. We live in a post-9/11/01 New York, USA, not a pre-12/84 Bhopal, India. It is not inappropriate to expect that problems relative to Environmental Health and Safety (read: the toxic fire trap that RRL [specifically RRL 13] has unnecessarily been in the past and continues to unnecessarily intermittently be), be addressed properly and solved in a timely manner. Though one would not expect Sloan to self-flagellate, one shouldn’t expect Sloan to exercise a double standard as they have (expecting complete candor from those who work in an academic environment, while not being candid relative to EH&S matters themselves). Sloan (via its Facilities Management team and their confederates) has been less than honest and less than forthright relative to such EH&S issues in the past.I thank you, in advance, for considering the matters discussed in this note.Sincerely yours,
[C-14 (Chemistry Laboratory) Certificate of Fitness Holder,
SKI/RRL Fire-Warden (RRL-13)]
Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research
Stagnant water (such as that which accumulates secondary to the ceiling-leak-’phenomena’), combined with ductwork problems and an endless source of exposure to microorganisms may constitute a legionella or pneumonia (causative agent) hospitable environment and it may be appropriate to consider the installation of ultraviolet germicidal lights in the ductwork systems, similar to those apparently studied in The Lancet, (2003, 362 (9898), 1785), if such systems are not already in use and are not in variance with intermittent contact with volatile chemicals that may coincidentally ’seep’ into the ductwork.
http://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=307012641
Curiously, though requested (implored!) in writing prior to a follow up site visit, to investigate specific fume hoods that were reported to exhibit the curious “cross contamination” phenomena, an OSHA investigator stated that he had to choose investigation sites randomly; i.e. Sloan was given a pass on this known and big picture damning, systemic problem.
Sloan has also been cited by the EPA.
Dr. David Golde, erstwhile MSKCC Physician in Chief committed suicide via the two whole method (bullet entry/exit wound). It was reported that he had a virulent cancer and (unverified) that the Feds were closing in on other matters.
Zvi Fuks, the Oracle behind Imclone who matched a foundling drug (eventually referred to as erbitux) with a company who sought a raison d’etre was purportedly tipped off during what became known as the Imclone insider stock anomalies.
There were also funny anomalies relative to bookkeeping in the Bioorganic Laboratory. Sarah Danishefsky would deign to show up at work, perhaps 50% time even though she was a “full time employee”, would interrupt SKI work by complaining over the phone about not being able to check her stocks via the internet, and there were funny bookkeeping initiatives; e.g. when the PI would travel at times he’d submit multiple times, to different places, his ticket for reimbursement (e.g. academic talks combined with consultancies) and justify the double billing by stating that his time was important. He’d do the same to cover his wife’s ticket. When the admin charged with filing such reimbursements felt uncomfortable he was taken off the assignment and treated in a threatening manner by the PI and / or his spouse, the conflicted (interests!) “full time employee” Dr. Sarah Danishefsky.
Relative to the Danishefsky’s stocks, SJD was affiliated with Ariad, either on its scientific board or perhaps a scientific founder. When other biotech stocks flourished in ~ 1999 Ariad, embroiled in an intellectual property legal impediment, floundered at ~ 50 cents. When the case was settled, the stock rocketed to ca. 50 dollars (a 10,000% or 100X increase) in perhaps a four month period, until the (bio)tech stock bubble burst ca. March of 2000 [when Clinton and Blair had a joint news conference stating their intention to share genomic data and possibly hindering the ability to patent genes]. Ariad insiders would have been privy to when the settlement would occur and may have been liberal in passing this information on to others.
John Deutch the erstwhile DCI, Director of Central Intelligence (the CIA!) under Clinton, who was admonished for removing top secret computers from the agency (did he leave them at a Starbucks?) was granted a seconds to midnight pardon by President Clinton while Hillary was proverbially stealing the White House silverware. John Deutch has also been a chemistry professor at MIT, is a member of the proverbial
Ed Sausville vetted an NIH RAID (rapid application to industrial development, meant as a bridge to clinical development) grant for the bioorganic chemistry lab for its epothilone derivatives. It was granted. (remember, Sarah Danishefsky, accepts gov’t money to vet epothilones, yet attempts to steer people away from the clinical trials of competing compounds conducted at Sloan, an egregious conflict of interest from a non clinician). Sausville has since sat on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Biotech Company (since purchased by Bristol Myers Squibb) that developed the Sloan Kettering portfolio of epothilones [Kosan].
The mission of MSKCC is nonpareil and most of its employees are selfless and truly care. However, there are clinicians, suits and researchers in high places who inappropriately drop their guard and act selfishly to a fault. This is hurtful as these people clearly know better. Remember the statement: “Sloan is pursuing a systemic approach to reducing expenses and increasing revenues […] One example of this is discouraging terminally ill patients from seeking initial treatment or second opinions from the cancer center […] the admission of such patients is counterproductive […] to Sloan Kettering.” [paraphrasing salient features, MSKCC, CFO/Chief Financial Officer].
Sloan boasts as having the “best cancer care anywhere” … apparently as long as it’s consistent with Sloan’s revenue stream and/or the potential profit of high profile non - clinicians’ stock portfolios.
Don Wiley a world renowned virologist, one of the 'missing [or dead!] scientists' of post 9/11 conspiracy theorist fame [this factoid for your edification, not implying acceptance/or/denial of any missing/dead scientist conspiracy theories] ... just happened to fall off of a bridge [above the Mississippi while attending an SAB (scientific advisory board) type meeting] ... and his body was discovered perhaps 10 days later down stream. ... just happened to fall off of a bridge. Don was pals with other members of the
re: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/digging_up_secret_slay_Hnx86uB1mMi6BPdjLqTaIN
Professor Danishefsky's brother runs a boutique shop within (formerly) Merrill, now at UBS along with his brother's son and (formerly) his brother's daughter who (see above) had an untimely demise. There is no implied Ariad connection here, but it would be interesting if there was one.
Sloan could lose its license [to conduct clinical trials] Neal Rosen, Member, MSKCC
There are many people who selflessly work at Sloan when they could be working in the for profit sector. When these employees rightfully bring concerns to the fore they are often dispatched under pretense. The admittedly critical tone of this summary of events is a rebuttal to such unacceptable attempts to bully and sweep under the rug egregious conflicts of interest and safety flaws.
Those who commit such acts ought to "go back to Hell where you came from you old worthog(s)" (Flannery O'Connor, paraphrased).
Jonas Salk was a top tier researcher who was also a mensch. Though no one expects a researcher to give away a discovery for free, acting in a manner that puts potential personal profit ahead of patient safety is an egregious line to cross. Shame on you MSKCC, Shame on you Drs. Danishefsky. Boo, you KNOW BETTER.
! MSKCCheats / TheDanishefskyDeception ! … Stealing Hope One Clinical Trial Enrolee At A Time?? … when they ought to be steeling hope. …
RE: Sloan Policy on Conflict of Interest [COI]/clinical trials
FROM: Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory, Sloan-Kettering Institute
see: http://scientific.thomson.com/press/2007/8407285/
People and Institutes capable of performing this level of science clearly know better than to act this way, especially when it is clearly not necessary. One is reminded of the “don’t you care,” and “Ending” scenes from Al Pacino’s And Justice For All. MSKCC, we hoped that you would be our hero. Minimally, you’re SUPPOSED to care. MSKCC’s slogan is “the best cancer care anywhere”; apparently per the CFO, not if you have a serious or advanced cancer and given the interesting self serving leverage that non clinicians attempt to invoke only if consistent with their stock portfolio’s health. MSKCC: Shame on you! How dare you!