Biotechnology Industry Organization Response
to Seattle Times Articles

March 16, 2001

Mr. Michael R. Fancher
Executive Editor and Senior Vice President
1120 John Street
PO Box 70
Seattle, WA 98111

Dear Mr. Fancher:

The Biotechnology Industry Organization, representing nearly 1,000 biotech companies and academic centers in the United States and overseas, chose Seattle in 1999 to host our annual International Meeting and Exhibition. We did so because the worldwide biotechnology industry has looked to Seattle’s biomedical community as a model. Seattle companies have made spectacular advances in medicine, contributing to the development of more than 100 biotech drugs and vaccines. These new drugs and vaccines have now helped millions of people around the globe, often for diseases that had no therapies before. The Seattle biotech community has played a particular leadership role in new treatments for various cancers, rheumatoid arthritis and cystic fibrosis.

This week’s series in the Seattle Times raises serious allegations about noncompliance with informed consent procedures for clinical trials at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and local biotech companies

Speaking for the entire biotech research community, including our members in Seattle, we endorse adherence to strict informed consent procedures. It is one of our industry’s critical principles. But we must gently point out that the death of patients during clinical trial does not automatically mean procedures were not followed. Many terminally ill patients who die during clinical trials do so from their underlying diseases. But their participation isn’t in vain. It often contributes to future medical breakthroughs.

BIO does not claim to know the facts about the allegations raised, but we do know that the Times has done a disservice to its readers with a careless, condemnatory tone that smears an entire biomedical community, a community that has helped millions of patients in Seattle, across the United States and around the world.

Further, can the earthquake be blamed perhaps for damaging your reporters’ ethical compasses? What else could explain using David Blech’s criminal behavior as a brush to smear Seattle biotech companies such as Immunex, Targeted Genetics, NeoRx and Icos and your reporters’ attempt to link, in loosest association, one of biotech’s most formidable and ethical pioneers — George Rathman — with the reprehensible Blech?

It is important to improve the conduct of clinical trials where warranted. BIO is dedicated to doing that. But Duff Wilson and David Heath’s inflammatory treatment does not help us find the cure.

Sincerely,

Carl B. Feldbaum
President
Biotechnology Industry Organization