More MSK fallout, more doubts about ‘the best care’

The head of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center will no longer serve on the boards of drug maker Merck or drug-development specialist Charles River Laboratories. Dr. Craig Thompson’s resignations, ProPublica and the New York Times report, follow the departure of the hospital’s chief medical officer, Dr. Jose Baselga, who stepped down after reports over industry conflicts. Thompson was paid $300,000 by Merck last year, in addition to about $6.7 million from the hospital, and $70,000 in cash plus $215,050 in stock from Charles River.

None of that sits well with Steven Petrow, a patient and volunteer at Sloan Kettering who asks in this First Opinion whether treatment protocols were the best available. “Could those recommendations be colored by financial entanglements?”

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