Sacked Moffitt Officials Didn’t Report Chinese Financial Ties

Top officials and researchers who resigned from Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, last month didn’t make requisite disclosures about foreign financial ties, according to new details that emerged this week in documents released by state lawmakers.
They didn’t report personal payments or bank accounts in China that totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars in research subsidies and annual salaries, as was required by their institution and the National Institutes of Health, according to the report.
The Moffitt shake-up is the latest event in the federal government’s push to thwart intellectual property theft by China at U.S. research institutions. It was perhaps the highest-profile case yet: President and CEO Alan List, MD, and vice president and center director Thomas Sellers, PhD, resigned under pressure along with four researchers who hid their relationship with China’s Thousand Talents Program for global recruitment.
Florida lawmakers have been investigating “whether our taxpayer-supported research institutions may have been compromised or vulnerable to intellectual property theft by foreign governments.”
Shifting Tides
The NIH had encouraged and contributed to scientific cooperation with China over the past 30 years but did a recent about-face as the FBI and congressional leaders raised concerns about the risk of intellectual property and technology theft. In March 2018, the NIH clarified how serious it was about conflict of interest disclosures that any personal income or research funding from foreign institutions be reported to one’s U.S. institution.
As a result, MD Anderson Cancer Center cut ties with three scientists in April 2019 and Emory University fired two neuroscientists in May for failing to disclose foreign research ties or undermining the integrity of research funding. All five were Asian Americans, whereas only one of the six at Moffitt is ethnic Chinese.
That Moffitt researcher, immunologist Sheng Wei, MD, was a key figure in the affiliation the Florida center started in 2008 to provide training and consultation to Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital.
Wei was first to be recruited by the Thousand Talents Program and, in turn, recruited List and then others at Moffitt to collaborate with Tianjin Medical University. Aside from Sellers, others involved were Daniel Sullivan, MD, a director of Moffitt’s clinical science program who oversaw the Tianjin partnership, and cancer biologist Pearlie Epling-Burnette, PharmD, PhD.
Pharmacogenomicist Howard McLeod, PharmD, also fired in December from Moffitt, was already participating in the Thousand Talents Program through another Chinese institution when he came to Moffitt in 2013.
Improper Disclosure
While these relationships and even participation in the Thousand Talents Program did not violate Moffitt policies, the center and NIH regulations required timely disclosure and advance approval after assessment for possible conflicts of interest or other compliance risks.
Those disclosures didn’t happen properly, with the “possible limited exception” of McLeod, according to the report.
They didn’t report personal payments or opening or maintaining personal bank accounts in China to receive Talents program compensation that could have been as much as $142,000 up front and research subsidies of up to $711,000 along with annual salaries of $36,000 to $64,000. There were also fully-paid escorted tourist trips in China, cash honoraria for speeches, and cash travel reimbursements while in China — many not disclosed to Moffitt.
Notably, “List did not disclose to Moffitt his participation in Chinese Talents programs, any Talents program payments, or his Chinese personal bank account, until specifically asked by Moffitt’s Compliance Office in late September 2019,” the report noted.
Importantly, List and three others opened those Chinese bank accounts to get compensation in November 2018 — “at a time well after these foreign influence issues had been brought to their attention by Moffitt and by the NIH through national academic and medical community announcements and public media reports.”
Others at the University of Florida including a College of Medicine faculty member and biomedical engineer were also sacked recently for similar transgressions.
What exactly was done in exchange for the money isn’t clear, but “[t]here is no evidence to date that intellectual property has been stolen or that research or patient care has been compromised,” the report reiterated.
Moffitt has said it is “reviewing its 12-year research and education partnership with the Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, a 2,400-bed hospital outside of Beijing,” as reported by the Tampa Bay Times.
Similar compliance reviews and probes are underway around the country. “At least 200 people are being investigated at 71 US hospitals, universities, and research institutions,” according to The BMJ.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/ethics/84502