Statement from Weill Cornell Medical College
March 26, 2008
Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC) has policies and procedures in place regarding research integrity. WCMC oversees and monitors the activities of its researchers to maintain compliance with regulatory and ethical standards. WCMC continually reviews and updates its policies as necessary.
The Foundation for Lung Cancer: Early Detection, Prevention and Treatment received an unrestricted gift of $3.6 million from the Vector Group, the holding company for Liggett Tobacco, in a series of payments, from July 2000 to June 2003. The gift was used appropriately for the public good -- to support Weill Cornell Medical College's highly regarded, multi-institutional, international I-ELCAP [International-Early Lung Cancer Action Program], whose objective is to perform CT screening research for lung cancer in order to determine whether such screening improves cure rates for persons at risk.
The original $2.4 million pledge to the Foundation -- and the work funded by the Foundation at Weill Cornell -- was fully and publicly disclosed at the time through a press release, and was substantially covered in the lay media. It was discussed and disclosed in the academic community at conferences, which were widely attended by advocacy groups, agencies, and by investigators from around the world interested in lung cancer screening. It was also fully disclosed to other foundations and groups wishing to contribute funds to I-ELCAP.
Specifically, the gift was used to support the I-ELCAP lung cancer screening project to develop the WCMC Coordinating Center and to help other institutions to develop screening programs as part of the international screening collaboration.
The gift was unrestricted, which means, unlike industry-funded research agreements, it allows for completely independently conducted research into areas of significant but uncertain promise, without the gift-recipient being held accountable in any way to the gift-giver. Significantly, there were no restrictions on publication of results or data.
I-ELCAP has obtained considerable funding from other sources, and has been able to recruit additional screening centers which, in turn, have developed their own funding resources.
The gift was originally made as part of a grand plan and vision on the part of public health and lung cancer advocacy groups and Vector/Liggett to provide screening research centers throughout the country. The Foundation was organized by Dr. Claudia Henschke and Dr. David Yankelevitz and other advocacy-individuals associated with the I-ELCAP program, with the expectation that other major tobacco companies, in addition to Vector/Liggett, would contribute to this national effort. The initial decision to establish a foundation was thought by them to be the most appropriate and effective fundraising vehicle to achieve such a national research plan. It was expected that, if the additional fundraising were successful, representatives of other institutions would be invited to join the Foundation's board. Dr. Antonio Gotto and Arthur Mahon were invited to join the board because the project was centered at Weill Cornell.
Cornell Research Foundation, a subsidiary of Cornell University, licensed technology (some of which is now patented) related to detection and measurement of nodules developed by Henschke, Yankelevitz and others to GE. As is typical at many institutions, the royalties were distributed to Cornell, which, in turn, provided a share to the inventors under Cornell intellectual property policy, which is in line with the Bayh-Dole Act. NIH Conflict of Interest regulations currently do not require individual disclosure of royalties paid to them by the employer institutions (see 42 CFR 50.603 -- Definition of "Significant Financial Interest"). Henschke and Yankelevitz did not use the GE products as part of the I-ELCAP and did not require participating I-ELCAP institutions to use the GE product.
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