Marcy Feit, a longtime member of the
governing board of the $3 billion California stem cell agency, has resigned from
the position.
She gave no reason for her resignation
in her Feb. 6 letter to Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. She was appointed by
Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in 2005, who heralded her for her work in
improving health care for rural residents of California.
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| Marcy Feit CIRM photo |
In the letter, she said she was
resigning as of Feb. 4, the same day she quit as CEO of ValleyCare
Health Systems in Northern California. No reason has been given for her departure from ValleyCare, but since then a wave of cutbacks has
been announced for the enterprise.
Feit had headed ValleyCare since 1997.
She was one of the few minority women to head a California health
care system and the only minority woman on the 29-member CIRM board.
(She is a Latina.) She has been noted for her efforts to improve its
fiscal operations and accounting procedures. Here is the full text of
her letter to Newsom, who will appoint her successor. The letter was provided by CIRM at the request of the California Stem Cell Report.
“I write to inform you of my resignation as a member of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, the Governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, effective February 4, 2014. It has been my honor to serve the State of California as one of your appointees to CIRM’s Governing Board. I am extraordinarily proud of the progress we have made in establishing CIRM, developing strong ethical, medical, and scientific policies, and ensuring that Californians will have the opportunity to benefit from the important research that CIRM is funding.
“With your support and with the hard work of CIRM’s Board and staff, CIRM has become the largest funder of human embryonic stem cell research in the world. Dramatic findings have already emerged from CIRM-funded research and I am hopeful that this research will one day lead to therapies for Californians who suffer from chronic disease and injury. Thank you for the opportunity to serve.”
