Written by David Hamilton, the article said CIRM "is probably one of the most grueling places to work in all of biomedicine." He noted the departure of several top staffers at the agency this year.
Sewell, who is a member of the CIRM Oversight Committee, responded directly with an online comment on Hamilton's Venture Beat piece. Sewell said in part,
"I challenge you to find a state agency that has been more effective. Those grants don’t just happen, it takes hard work and lots of meetings. And, we’ve been transparent throughout the entire process. Thus, the system envisioned by Prop 71 works. I can appreciate that it’s your job to read the tea leaves and make some half baked spin, but you’re just wrong here."Hamilton responded in part,
"I intended no denigration of the ICOC membership, but it’s a bureaucratic fact that when you have a 26-headed hydra trying to run a public agency, whoever controls the agenda and many if not most staff resources effectively directs the body’s effort — and that’s more or less what (California stem cell chairman) Bob (Klein) does."You can read the entire exchange, including the original article, here. Scroll down to the bottom to find the comments.
