CIRM Board Member Prieto Critiques the IOM Stem Cell Report

Francisco Prieto, a member of the governing board of the $3 billion California stem cell agency, is expressing some additional dissatisfaction with the blue-ribbon Institute of Medicine (IOM) report for which the agency paid $700,000.

The report recommended sweeping changes at the agency, including creation of a new majority of independent members on the board. The IOM cited problems arising from the built-in conflicts of interest on the board that were created by Proposition 71, which created in the agency in 2004. Prieto's email refers to Bob Klein, who is a real estate investor and attorney. Klein oversaw the drafting of the 10,000-word ballot measure(writing much of it himself), ran its $35 million ballot campaign and became the first chairman of the agency. The qualifications for chairman were written into the proposition and seemed to uniquely apply to Klein.  Prieto is a Sacramento physician who was appointed to the board as patient advocate.

.Here is the text of Prieto's comments. His earlier comments can be found here.

“A few more words on independence, and the IOM.  I think Bob Klein drafted the proposition (and remember, all of this was spelled out there – readily available to the voters and whatever news sources they were depending on for information) deliberately to engage patient advocates. I think  he knew that those of us who have been active in disease advocacy have a passion around the issue of advancing research that someone without that background would be unlikely to have. I’m not sure exactly what the IOM had in mind when they called for more 'independent' members of the board, since they very unfortunately did not bother to interview the patient advocates on the ICOC(the governing board). I don’t know what their reason for this was, if there was one, but they only circulated a (in my view) frankly inadequate questionnaire, and interviewed a small handful of people. I think this was a major flaw in their process and gave them a very limited view of our role. It is hard for me to imagine who they might have in mind, if not people who had been involved with some existing advocacy organization. I think there are very few if any patient advocates who aren’t working with some group – the only ones I might imagine would be some independently wealthy person able to start a foundation or research institute on their own.  With all due respect to Bill Gates and the great work his foundation is doing with malaria and HIV, I have written before that I think it would be absolutely wrong and anti-democratic to create any public board or commission that only millionaires could sit on.”

An anonymous comment was also posted concerning the IOM report and conflicts of interest. It dealt briefly with the issue and difficulty of managing conflicts. The comment can be found at the end of this item.