Muckraking Newsletter Keeps Its Eye on Cancer's Power Elite
http://www.iht.com/articles/21447.html
NEW YORK There's the war on cancer, and there's the war over cancer - the high-stakes competition over money, medicine and policy. And no one has a better time stirring the pot than Paul Goldberg, a writer, who with his wife, Kirsten Boyd Goldberg, produces The Cancer Letter, a newsletter in Washington that keeps a muckraker's eye on cancer's power elite. . Mr. Goldberg, 41, a Russian émigré with a quirky sense of humor and a thirst for the jugular, has spent 10 years challenging phony cures, celebrity doctors and power-hungry bureaucrats. He has been called a Bolshevik and an irritant. But everybody who is anybody in cancer reads his stories. . "Within the cancer world, The Cancer Letter is both respected and feared," said Susan Love, a surgeon and author. "There's lots of money for research, but is it supporting the best research or my buddy's research or research in the district of some congressman? That's what Paul does: He shines a light where it needs to be shined." . Fran Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, an advocacy group for patients, adds: "Paul is one of the few things in the world of cancer that's fun. He doesn't take himself, or any of us, too seriously." . But the weekly newsletter's several thousand readers, who include leading cancer researchers, activists and policy makers, take it very seriously. The letter gave early voice to the patient activist movement, helped force out an unpopular Clinton administration health official, exposed a society doctor whose treatments may have cost lives and recently revealed - much to the embarrassment of the American Cancer Society - that it had unwittingly hired two public relations firms with ties to the tobacco industry. . Even those who have felt the publication's sting give it credit for energizing the sometimes stodgy cancer community. . Mr. Goldberg is enjoying the attention. "Through the First Amendment, we're licensed to be kvetches, and we love that role," he said amiably. "We're not worried about making friends or enemies." . Ms. Goldberg, 37, the publisher and editor in chief, adds: "Scientists fight about ideas and dollars, and they fight passionately. It wouldn't be good journalism to gloss over those fights." A former education writer, she took over as publisher when her father, who founded the newsletter in 1973, retired 11 years ago. . Two years ago, the American Journalism Review dubbed the Goldbergs - the newsletter's only full-time staff members - "small but mighty watchdogs" for exposing a loophole in federally approved clinical trials that allowed a controversial cancer drug to be used on thousands of patients without accurate information about its safety or effectiveness. That investigation won an award for Watchdog Journalism from the Washington chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. No other newsletter had ever won the prize. . But some critics say success has spoiled the publication, and they contend Mr. Goldberg has overstepped the boundaries of ethical journalism. At issue are his articles criticizing the American Cancer Society and its brainchild, the National Dialogue on Cancer. The dialogue, whose co-chairman is George Bush, the former president, is a consortium of 160 public and private groups working on cancer prevention and treatment. ITS leaders have expressed hopes that the dialogue will help cancer groups collaborate on outreach programs and speak in a more unified voice. . Sounds fairly benign. But Mr. Goldberg was suspicious. Citing numerous sources - most of them named, some not - he said the American Cancer Society was empire-building in Washington at public expense. The society, he wrote, was acting unethically, perhaps even illegally, by using federal dollars to finance the dialogue, which he says has a restricted membership and meets behind closed doors. The group's ultimate goal, he asserted, was to reshape cancer policy to emphasize prevention and control at the expense of research. . With millions of federal and philanthropic dollars at stake, the American Cancer Society had no choice but to respond. Harmon Eyre, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, denied Mr. Goldberg's accusations and said the society's use of federal dollars was completely justified. . "The purpose of the dialogue is to accelerate progress toward the ultimate eradication of cancer," Mr. Eyre said. "It has nothing to do with elevating the American Cancer Society's presence in Washington, D.C." . He added: "I'm troubled by the fact that Paul, unlike most investigative reporters, doesn't have an editor to report to. So he's free to report his own conclusions without documented sources." . Ms. Goldberg responded: "Paul does have an editor. That's me. The stories were factual, responsible and documented, and we stand by them."
http://www.iht.com/articles/21447.html
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