Chancellor Orders Review of UCI Scientist

Confronted with a cloud over UC Irvine’s cancer research programs, Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone has ordered his senior staff to review the activities of a UCI scientist implicated in the use of unauthorized cancer treatments, officials said Friday.

Cicerone’s concerns include questions raised over the conduct of former UCI cancer specialist John C. Hiserodt and contained in a three-page report filed Dec. 8 by Dr. Yutaka Kikkawa, chair of pathology at UCI Medical Center.

On Friday, a former White House official denied the report’s assertion that he intervened at UCI on behalf of a cancer-stricken Florida girl, urging doctors to admit her in a cutting-edge, clinical trial for cancer patients in the mid-1990s.

Leon Panetta, President Clinton’s former chief of staff who was a longtime congressman, said he did not know the girl or her family, and he has never contacted anyone at the UCI cancer center on behalf of a patient.

The girl’s father, Robert Turken of Miami Beach, also denied Kikkawa’s claim that Turken contacted Panetta about his daughter, Jennifer. Turken also dismissed claims in a second, 1997 report by UCI biochemist Gale Granger that the girl’s influential family friends pressured the university to treat her.

Cicerone’s attempt to untangle conflicting versions of the events come as federal health officials investigate reports that unauthorized research was conducted at a UCI cancer center laboratory in the mid-1990s. At the center of the controversy is Hiserodt and his role in developing a cancer treatment for Turken’s daughter. She died in September 1997.

A 1997 UCI internal inquiry determined that Hiserodt shipped an unauthorized, experimental cancer treatment to a Miami hospital, where Jennifer was being treated in mid-1996.

Hiserodt took a leave of absence during the inquiry and resigned from UCI after it was completed. Hiserodt now works for Meyer Pharmaceuticals in Newport Beach, although he is currently on paid leave, said company spokeswoman Sarah Cheaure.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is conducting criminal and regulatory investigations into Hiserodt’s actions.

Richard Elbaum, a UCI spokesman, said the chancellor has asked several senior administrators to gather information about Hiserodt’s work and events at the UCI cancer center laboratory during his tenure. Cicerone also asked them to review the report filed by Kikkawa, who served as Hiserodt’s supervisor.

“Everything that’s in Dr. Kikkawa’s letter, as well as all other things related to this issue, are being looked into,” Elbaum said.

On Friday, Kikkawa said his report’s statements about Panetta and Turken were based on his “best recollection” of events in the mid-1990s, but he could not recall the source of the information.

“It’s been a long time,” Kikkawa said.

While Kikkawa’s report included assertions of whom Panetta called and when, Kikkawa on Friday acknowledged that the information was based on statements made to him by other people.

Turken, a Miami attorney who first brought his 8-year-old daughter to UCI in 1995, said he was flabbergasted by Kikkawa’s report. Turken said he does not know Panetta and has never met the former Clinton administration official.

“I’m flattered that someone would think that I even knew the man,” Turken said.

The only pressure, Turken said, came from his family and Jennifer’s doctors at Duke University, who urged UCI to admit the girl in its federally approved treatment program because it held promise for a cure, Turken said.

Panetta also was puzzled by Kikkawa’s claims.

“First of all, I have no recollection of doing anything like this,” Panetta said Friday. “Secondly, it would have been against my office policy.”

Still, it’s possible that someone in the White House may have been contacted, Panetta said, but if so, he was not aware of it.

Whenever he was contacted by people requesting his assistance, Panetta said, it was his policy to back up his response in a written letter. He found no such letter in his files.