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Jay Hedlund Resigns Before Meeting With NIH Head Varmus
June 10, 1999. In the middle of last month, May 18, Jay Hedlund, President and CEO of the NPCC, resigned. Hedlund described his departure as amicable and timely, although he resigned with no replacement in the wings.
"The NPCC has completed the first stage of its growth as an organization," he said. "Now is the time for the board and leaders in the community to pause and reflect on the mission and issues that will serve the needs of the NPCC in its future stages. I believe this creates an appropriate opportunity for me to step down and for the organization to find a new president."
Hedlund leaves the organization in the care (reportedly, for up to 90 days) of its Chairman, Ralph Burnett; Vice Chairman William A. Schwartz, and Vice Chairman Richard N. Atkins, M.D., president of CaP CURE's Government Research Initiatives Group, based in Washington, DC.
Hedlund unfortunately was unable to complete a key task, attendance at the June 16 meeting with Dr. Harold Varmus before a Senate subcommittee. Dr. Varmus, the bike-riding Nobel prize winner in charge of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), had delayed this meeting by two months.
In an article in June 7 New Yorker, James Fallows calls Harold Varmus "the man behind Washington's medical-industrial complex." The NIH employs thirteen thousand scientists and is the leading funder of biomedical research in the world. Since Varmus took over as director in 1993, the NIH budget has increased from over ten billion dollars to almost sixteen billion dollars.
Varmus is passionate about finding a cure for malaria. He is passionate about the Human Genome Project. He is passionate about stem-cell research. He is determined to speed up research through scientific publication on the Internet. "Year after year," Fallows says, "in testimony to Congress, Varmus has offered a steadily evolving rationale for the long-term benefits of investing heavily in basic science."
According to the New Yorker article, Dr. Varmus "has managed to sustain political support for medical research without endorsing science's version of pork-barrel spending -- grants earmarked for crusades against high-profile diseases, like prostate and breast cancer, where the scientific basis for an immediate cure is slim." Fallows sees Varmus's distancing of himself from prostate and breast cancer campaigns as one of his "victories" on the path toward "truly revolutionary advances in medicine."
Prostate cancer accounts for 15 percent of all cancer diagnoses, yet only 5 per cent of federal cancer dollars are directed toward prostate cancer research. And now we know that a cure for prostate cancer is probably not high on Dr. Varmus's wish-list.
How high the National Institutes of Health puts prostate cancer research will depend partly on how many teeth are implanted in Resolution 92, introduced May 4 in the Senate. Resolution 92 states that "finding treatment breakthroughs and a cure for prostate cancer should be made a national health priority." It is sponsored by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), John Ashcroft (R-MO), Paul Coverdell (R-GA), Jesse Helms (R-NC), Jim Jeffords (R-VT), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Connie Mack (R-FL), Harry Reid (D-NV), and Charles Schumer (D-NY).
This brings us back to Jay Hedlund's resignation. Hedlund's strengths include directness, a sense of urgency and the ability to inspire grass-roots volunteers. Hedlund is known to be mild-mannered. He described his parting from NPCC as amicable. But on April 20, Hedlund wrote to Varmus expressing "deep dismay and concern" over the delay in bringing the five-year prostate cancer research plan to the Senate. "The history of prostate cancer research at the NIH," Hedlund wrote, "has been characterized by too much neglect and indifference." Reportedly, Jay Hedlund may not have wanted to see those words made public. When they were, he may have been caught in an embarrassing situation. But somebody had to say this on behalf of men who have prostate cancer. Advocates for other diseases (e.g. for diabetes) have made even stronger statements. We hope Dr. Varmus and others at NIH heard.
LINKS
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NIH: The Director's Page (Harold Varmus)
Harold Varmus Reflects on His Numerous
Goals as Director of the NIH
By Paulette Walker Campbell
American Diabetes Association reaction when NIH Declared Diabetes Not a Priority
New Directions in Biology and Medicine
Harold Varmus, Director NIH
Harold Varmus: Nobel Laureate at the NIH P&S Journal, Fall 1994
Dr. Harold Varmus left NIH January 2000 to become head of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York.
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