FYI…UCSF in the News is a daily summary of news stories published worldwide that highlight UCSF, its affiliated programs, and issues that affect the University.  To read the full news story, click the individual headlines listed below.

On the second Wednesday of each month, FYI…UCSF in the News includes an additional "Research Roundup" section that lists research papers authored by UCSF faculty and published in the journals Cell, Health Services Research, JAMA, Lancet, Nature, NEJM, Nursing Research, and Science.

UCSF PRINT AND ONLINE COVERAGE

  • UCSF dean is fired, cites whistle-blowing (Los Angeles Times)
    The LA Times reports: "Dr. David A. Kessler, dean of the UC San Francisco School of Medicine, said Friday that he was fired from his post after raising questions about alleged financial improprieties at the school, one of the nation's most prestigious."
  • UCSF lured Kessler from Yale with money, gifts and promises (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The Chronicle reports: "The University of California's courtship of Dr. David Kessler to head its highly regarded medical school in San Francisco in 2003 began with promises, money and gifts."
  • Texas Children's is expanding its services (Houston Chronicle - Online)
    The Houston Chronicle reports: "Texas Children's Hospital is solidifying its burgeoning maternity empire with the acquisition of The Women's Specialists of Houston, a private obstetrics and gynecology practice that specializes in high-risk pregnancies and also has a wel--known midwife division. ... Texas Children's is one of four hospitals in the U.S. offering comprehensive fetal care, including surgery in the womb. Others are UCSF Children's Hospital in San Francisco, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Children's Hospital Boston."
  • Insurer said no, so cancer patient pays for experimental treatment (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The Chronicle reports: "Evanthia Pappas, a Bay Area prosecutor diagnosed on her 37th birthday with a rare, aggressive form of breast cancer, has been offered hope in the form of a clinical trial. But this hope, presented by oncologists who specialize in her disease at the University of Texas' famed M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, comes at a high price: $235,000.a" -- Dr. John Park, attending medical oncologist at UCSF, is quoted.
  • Dean Says Firing Came After Query On Finances (New York Times)
    The New York Times reports: "The dean of the highly ranked medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, was fired this week, and he suggested on Friday that the move came as a result of questions he had raised about the institution's financial accounting."
  • Fighting 'bubble boy disease' among Navajos, Apaches (Albuquerque Tribune, The)
    The Associated Press reports: "In the Navajo population, one in every 2,500 children inherit severe combined immune deficiency (SCID), a condition that endows them virtually no immune system. In the general population, SCID is much more rare, affecting one in 100,000 children. Morton Cowan, director of the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Program at the University of California, San Francisco, a physician who has worked with SCID patients for more than two decades, is quoted. -- [This story was also published in the Jackson Hole Star Tribune and the Monterey Herald]
  • UCSF Fires Dean of Its Medical School (Washington Post)
    The Washington Post reports: "David A. Kessler, a former head of the Food and Drug Administration, has been terminated as dean of the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine."
  • UCSF medical school fires dean in dispute over finances (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The Chronicle reports: "Dr. David Kessler, the onetime commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration who became dean of the UCSF School of Medicine in 2003, was fired Thursday night after years of discord over finances at the prestigious medical school."
  • Don't screw with the flu (Between The Lines)
    'Don't screw with the flu' could become a new slogan for HIV prevention. That's because up to 80 percent of persons newly infected with HIV experience flu-like symptoms. Viral load is sky high in the period immediately after that, until your immune system kicks in and suppresses the virus to an individual set point of chronic infection," writes PrideSource.com. -- Steve Morin, director of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, is quoted.
  • A risky drug may get wider market (St. Petersburg Times - Clearwater Bureau)
    Shahram Ahari, MPH, a public health research on biological disaster preparedness at the University of California, San Francisco, and former Eli Lilly rep who sold Zyprexa, is one of the experts featured.
  • Key breast cancer finding (Chicago Tribune)
    Dr. Thea Tlsty, a molecular pathologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues presented a study at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium this past week that found a method for predicting which patients with precancerous breast tumors will to develop cancer.
  • Cancer's newest prescription (USA Today)
    Cancer survivor Jessie Gruman tells USA Today, "doctors are so focused on eradicating cancer that they sometimes ignore the shock and other emotions that can hinder treatment." Nancy Adler, chairman of the Institute of Medicine's panel and a professor of psychology at the University of California-San Francisco, is quoted.
  • Aid is too low for many top doctoral students (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The Chronicle reports: "The University of California is failing to attract some of the best doctoral students because its financial aid and fellowship packages are not competitive with other top colleges, according to a new report from UC." -- Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at UCSF and former chair of the University Committee on Planning and Budget, is quoted.
  • Cancer Lab Rat; UCSF Fires Kessler & Canadian Nuke Online (WSJ Health Blog)
    The Wall Street Journal Health Blog reports: "And that brings us to our next item, the UCSF School of Medicine fired Kessler as its dean last week. The Los Angeles Times reported that the 'decision shocked faculty members and even some of the dean’s confidants, but it followed nearly three years of increasingly bitter disputes between Kessler and top university officials' over accounting practices and whether Kessler was misled about the school’s finances when he was recruited for the job in 2003. For its part, UCSF said it had investigated Kessler’s allegations about mismanagement and 'found no evidence of financial irregularities.'"
  • Inked Out (Los Angeles Business Journal)
    The LA Business Journal reports: "UCLA’s giant medical center recently asked its doctors, medical students and employees to turn in any pens and promotional items imprinted with corporate logos or products made by drug and other health care companies." Professor Lisa Bero at UC San Francisco's School of Pharmacy, "who has published studies on the influence of pharmaceutical marketing on physician practices," is quoted.

UCSF RADIO COVERAGE

  • Toxins in the Home: Indoor Air Can Be Polluted Too (NPR Talk of the Nation)
    NPR reports: "The Environmental Protection Agency says that the air inside your house could be more polluted -- especially with lead, radon, and tobacco smoke -- than the air outdoors." Paul Blanc, MD, author of How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace; professor of medicine and chair of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, talks to NPR about "toxic dangers in common household products and in the very materials that make up your house." -- An excerpt from Dr. Blanc's book is printed on this NPR website. Air Time: 3 PM
  • UCSF Dean of Medicine to Fight for His Old Job (KCBS-AM)
    KCBS reports: "The dean of the U.C. San Francisco Medical School, who was fired last week after a long-simmering dispute with the UCSF Chancellor, is going to try to get his job back." -- Air Time Today: 6 AM [Related stories aired on KCBS throughout the weekend.]

UCSF HEADLINES

  • Heart of hearts (Science Cafe)
    Science Cafe reports: "Pediatric cardiologist Harold Bernstein is unlocking the secrets of how a human heart develops, how cardiac cells become specialized and how stem cells might figure in future therapy."
  • Scholar Speaks About History of Medical Experimentation on African Americans (UCSF Today)
    UCSF Today reports: "Author Harriet Washington, who chronicled the history of clinical experimentation on African Americans, drew a standing-room only-crowd to a lecture room at UCSF on Nov. 29."
  • Statement by UCSF and University of California Office of General Counsel (UCSF Today)
    "On December 14, UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop, MD, announced that Professor David Kessler, MD, had left office as Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs. He also announced that Professor Sam Hawgood, MB, BS, had been named as Interim Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine."
  • Bruce Alberts Named New Editor-in-Chief of Science (UCSF Today)
    UCSF Today reports: "Bruce Alberts, president emeritus of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and chair of the National Research Council (1993-2005), has been named by the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to serve as editor-in-chief of its journal Science beginning 1 March 2008."