Thursday, February 18, 2010

MSKCC, DANISHEFSKY, VARMUS, SLOAN KETTERING, CHRISTINE HICKEY, ED MAHONEY, SHELLY FRIEDMAN

This blog presents ethics and safety concerns at a high profile cancer center (MSKCC), where clinical trial candidates are developed. It is not run by MSKCC or anyone currently affiliated with that Institution. It does not imply that one should not seek appropriate medical attention for an ailment by a reputable physician (at MSKCC or elsewhere).

MSKCC, DANISHEFSKY, VARMUS, SLOAN KETTERING, CHRISTINE HICKEY, ED MAHONEY, SHELLY FRIEDMAN

For a summary of ethics and safety concerns at a high profile cancer research center (mskcc, where clinical trial candidates are developed), please see:

www.mskccheats.blogspot.com or http://onstealinghope.blogspot.com

MSKCCheats / TheDanishefskyDeception ! Leak of the Day: Funny bookkeeping in the Danishefsky Laboratory? Sarah Danishefsky who shows up at work perhaps 50% time (lunch included)! is elevated from '54% employee' (whatever that is!) to 'full time employee'. When questioned by the admin charged with electronic time card submission Sarah denies being a 'full time employee'. When questioned further, she assumes the electronic time keeping duties (she deigns to work!) No one is talking about this curious anomaly! The quarterly verification sheets come from research resources management to be signed by the PI (that would be Professor Samuel J. Danishefsky!), yet he wants his admin to sign it on his behalf! Admin feels something isn't quite right (kosher!) and leaves form in signature file for SJD to address. Sarah Danishefsky after deigning to show face at Sloan has a fit as her spouse would by signing the form be misstating the facts (i.e. LYING!) about his wife's time and effort (does trading her own stocks from home, while the lab receives federal funding for not only RO1 discovery grants, but NIH RAID grants whose raison d'etre is to develop clinical trial candidates to the point of enticing either big pharma, or minimally biotech ... and then the lovely Dr. Sarah Danishefsky, non-clinician attempts to intercede (steer away!) desperate cancer patients or their proxies from clinical trial candidates as they compete with those that have YET to emanate from the lab her spouse PIs! After all when she calls from her home at 11 AM to complain that she 'can't check my stocks!' [wouldn't a 'full time employee' be at work by 9AM?] when there's an internet access problem at her home, or she has a meltdown when the verizon dsl people set up the internet access, but don't set up Yahoo Finance as a default home page (and alas, poor, poor Sarah Danishefsky can't check her stocks) something is amiss. More fodder Sam Danishefsky travels on an academic (talk) / consultancy trip and submits his airplane ticket to multiple hosts (academic/biotech) and claims 'my time is important'. ... meanwhile on more than one occasion(s) that his wife travels with him he tries to cover her ticket by submitting his multiple times and the admin doesn't feel quite right doing this ... once again Sarah Danishefsky is upset and the clearly unacceptable attempted intimidation begins. ... while she's purging her files of incriminating evidence ... OOPS! ... Add to the fray the FACT that Dr. Sarah Danishefsky in an egregious act of craven self servitude instructs a colleague (a junior but not direct report) to embargo known information relative to the availability of a clinical trial candidate [one that is out of the proverbial gate prior to Sloan's (read the bioorganic's candidate) developed by a competitor and trialed at Sloan Kettering, when high stakes milestone achievement monetary rewards are on the line ... and you have a classic case study in egregiously disingenuous conflicts of interest. ... one that may not be illegal from the perspective of the selfish Danishefskys but acts that could cause Sloan Kettering to lose its licenses to conduct clinical trials. ... and that is why Sloan has attempted to sweep such incidents under the rug.

Add to the fray the bizarre Facilities Management fiascoes created by Sloan's Facilities team(s) ... graft, no show jobs, ducts to nowhere, cement testings never performed, OSHA and EPA citations and you have a situation where the reliability of reaction conditions in the research labs are apt to be impeached. ... and there would go kaput the entire Sloan Kettering docket of intellectual property.

The shame of all this is that the ethics lapses are completely unnecessary given the caliber of science conducted at Sloan. As to the Facilities fiascoes, its a never ending mass of what me worry construction.

Recall the brazen tack of Sloan as espoused by its CFO ... “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]. Though Sloan may attempt to duck this, as the website has been expunged, digital forensics could verify its prior posting.

and remember the tip of the iceberg:

http://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=307012641
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/nyregion/6-charged-with-falsifying-concrete-testing-results.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=sloan%20kettering%20concrete&st=cse

Concrete Tests Faked Again, Officials Charge

In 2008, a company hired to test the strength of the concrete used at major public works projects in New York … falsified results, prosecutors concluded, and construction executives scrambled to find a replacement.

On Thursday, the company they selected, its owner and five employees were arraigned on charges of doing the very same thing on those two projects and hundreds of others.

In fact, none of the nearly 3,000 test reports that investigators seized from the replacement company, American Standard Testing and Consulting Laboratories, contained legitimate test results, according to one person briefed on the inquiry that led to the charges.

“The volume of fabricated tests is egregious,” the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said in announcing the charges. “It was systemic; it was pervasive.”

the projects for which test results were allegedly falsified represented … a building at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Weill Medical College, Columbia University...

what’s left unsaid is whether Sames and Sezen were ‘having an affair’. blind ambition run amok ... http://www.cendigital.org/cendigital/20110808_sub?sub_id=zux3fQnmeamv&folio=40#pg42

don't forget to follow the money.

as to the Danishefskys, perhaps you ought to read for the purpose of understanding, as opposed to parroting the good book(s) you portend to champion. you are SUPPOSED to be our hero, not the scoundrel(s). As to Sloan, why do you allow your leadership types to act in variance with your motto 'the best cancer care anywhere'? ... perhaps you should add: as long as consistent with leaderships stock portfolios?

how about a dose of 60 minutes, drudgereport or Matt Taibbi reportage on this subject?


“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]

Institutes and individuals capable of performing such high levels of research clearly know better than to act in so disingenuous and selfish a manner

Why would a non clinician instruct a colleague to withhold/embargo known information relative to availability of clinical trial candidates developed off site, yet tested at MSKCC (e.g. BMS’, Novartis’) when the in house (e.g. Bioorganic’s) candidate had not yet left the proverbial starting gate?

Why have there been reports of high profile non clinicians leveraging clinicians overseeing clinical trials to continue enrollment possibly in variance with the intuition of the clinician … when very large ‘milestone’ (e.g. completion of a clinical trial phase) achievement royalty payments are in the balance?

Why would Sloan abandon a building after its employees are chronically exposed to poison (carbon oxide(s)) after terminating on pretense employees who complained about heath concerns?

Why would Sloan build a laboratory building strewn with toxins and knowingly not install ductwork controls?

MSKCC has been cited for ’serious’ environmental health and safety infractions by OSHA

MSKCC has been cited by the EPA

Ed Mahoney VP currently heads MSKCC Facilities Management

Sarah Danishefsky Ph.D. (a non clinician) has administered the bioorganic chemistry laboratory

Attorney Shelly Friedman has represented MSKCC when it attempts to assuage a rightfully concerned local community (and its CB8M board) relative to environmental health and safety (EH&S) concerns

Christine Hickey has in the past been a spokesperson for MSKCC

MSKCC, we hoped you’d be our hero.

MSKCC, minimally you’re supposed to care.

Shame on you MSKCC

Boo.

You know better.

How dare you, MSKCC