AACR Settles Dispute with Toronto Hotels Over 2003 Annual Meeting
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Vol. 31 No. 15 April 15, 2005 © Copyright 2005 The Cancer Letter Inc. All rights reserved. Price $335 Per Year AACR Settles Dispute With Toronto Hotels Over 2003 Annual Meeting Cancellation By Kirsten Boyd Goldberg The American Association for Cancer Research has settled a legal dispute with the Toronto Convention Center and hotels, stemming from the AACR 2003 Aftermath: cancellation of its annual meeting in April 2003. NCI Provided $2 Million The convention center and 19 hotels sought $6.2 million Canadian To Pay Washington from AACR as payment under contracts for housing the estimated 16,000 Convention Center, scientists and others who were expected to attend the meeting. Other Expenses Two days before the event was scheduled to begin, AACR cancelled . Page 2 it, citing the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Toronto. (Continued to page 2) Washington Roundup: In Brief: Senate Committee AACR To Honor Eight Scientists Delays Session At Annual Meeting In Anaheim On FDA Nominee The American Association for Cancer Research will honor several . Page 4 scientists at its annual meeting April 16-20, in Anaheim, Calif. David Livingston, deputy director, Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center National Academies: and the Emil Frei Professor of Genetics and Medicine, Harvard Medical Report Defines School, will receive the AACR-G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award for his Indicators Of Progress contributions to the understanding of the molecular basis of cancer. In Quality of Care Charles Sawyers, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and . Page 5 Peter Bing Professor of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, will be awarded the AACR-Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award Oversight Needed for his research in molecularly-targeted therapy, with special emphasis on For Cord Blood Banks, signaling pathway abnormalities in cancer cells as targets for drug therapy. Napoleone Ferrara, of Genentech Inc., will receive the AACR-Bruce IOM Report Says F. Cain Memorial Award for his discovery of the protein, vascular endothelial . Page 6 cell growth factor (VEGF), and his research leading to the development of the anti-VEGF antibody. Funding Opportunities: Ross Prentice, member of the Division of Public Health Sciences Scholarships Offered; at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and professor of biostatistics Prevention Fellowship; at University of Washington, will be awarded the AACR-American NCI Grant Supplements Cancer Society Award for Research Excellence in Cancer Epidemiology . Page 7 and Prevention for his outstanding contributions to cancer epidemiology, prevention, and public health through his role in conceiving, designing, and organizing the clinical trial arm of the Women’s Health Initiative. Jimmie Holland, the Wayne E. Chapman Chair in Psychiatric Oncology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and professor of psychiatry, Weill (Continued to page 7) reporter, but subsequent emails and phone calls were Insurance Covered AACR's not returned. Obligations To Toronto Hotels After the cancellation of the Toronto meeting, (Continued from page 1) AACR had a reserve of $12 million, and the meeting in After the cancellation, AACR Chief Executive Officer Washington was expected to cost about $5 million. Margaret Foti secured a $2 million subsidy from NCI NCI subsidized the Washington meeting by to help cover expenses for rescheduling the meeting, having a contractor pay $1,931,557 to cover a variety which was held in July, in Washington, D.C. of AACR’s bills, including reimbursement to the Prior to the settlement with the Toronto hotels Washington Convention Center, webcasting services, and the convention center, the association prevailed computer rental, security services, audio visual services, on Travelers Insurance Co. to cover the losses and exhibit show setup, and public relations. obligations from the cancellation, said AACR’s lawyer, The subsidy didn’t go through peer review and John Foster III, of the Atlanta firm Foster, Jensen & was not discussed by advisory boards or the NCI Gulley. Executive Committee. The government commitment “They covered the claim, so it was pretty much was announced as an “informational item” at a meeting a break-even for AACR,” Foster said to The Cancer of the NCI Executive Committee (The Cancer Letter, Letter. “[Travelers] covered their obligations to hotels, June 20, 2003). Since the NCI money didn’t go to out-of-pocket expenses, things like that.” AACR directly, it didn’t have to be disclosed on the Since the terms of the legal settlement and association’s tax filings. insurance coverage were not disclosed, it is unclear The 2003 AACR meeting was of crucial importance whether AACR sustained a financial loss from the 2003 to NCI Director Andrew von Eschenbach. It provided annual meeting, or whether it came out ahead, thanks him with a prominent venue for announcing his plan to a subsidy from NCI. to “eliminate the suffering and death due to cancer” by After canceling the Toronto meeting, AACR 2015. At the Washington meeting, AACR endorsed this needed the money, said Warren Froelich, the association’s “challenge goal.” director of communications. Also at the meeting, NCI announced a multi-billion “Clearly, at that time, we didn’t have that money,” dollar National Biospecimen Network, a biorepository, Froelich said, declining to discuss the association’s which could have placed tissue collection outside the financial situation or the terms of the settlement. Froelich government. said he would have other AACR officials contact this Building up to the meeting, AACR provided von Eschenbach with another crucial element for his platform: a document that advocated regulatory approval Member, Newsletter of drugs shown to prevent or treat lesions that may be and Electronic Publishers precursors of cancer. Association The agents would be approved on the surrogate Editor & Publisher: Kirsten Boyd Goldberg endpoint of eliminating these lesions, the 2002 paper Editor: Paul Goldberg by an AACR task force proposed. Under this proposal, Editorial Assistant: Shelley Whitmore Wolfe sponsors wouldn’t need to demonstrate definitively that without treatment, the patient would have gotten Editorial: 202-362-1809 Fax: 202-318-4030 cancer and died. PO Box 9905, Washington DC 20016 “Continuing to rely on cancer incidence and Letters to the Editor may be sent to the above address. mortality endpoints will lead to significant loss Customer Service: 800-513-7042 of opportunity to impact cancer,” said the paper, PO Box 40724, Nashville TN 37204-0724 “Treatment and Prevention of Intraepithelial Neoplasia: Customer service FAQ: www.cancerletter.com An Important Target for Accelerated New Agent Development” (The Cancer Letter, May 30, 2003). Subscription $335 per year worldwide. ISSN 0096-3917. Published 46 times a year by The Cancer Letter Inc. Other than "fair use" as speci- The NBN plan has since been scaled down, and fied by U.S. copyright law, none of the content of this publication may is facing an uncertain future. The plan to approve be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form cancer agents for cancer prevention based on surrogate (electronic, photocopying, or facsimile) without prior written permission of the publisher. Violators risk criminal penalties and damages. endpoints ran into stiff opposition from scientists and Founded Dec. 21, 1973, by Jerry D. Boyd. FDA. With the disappointing results of cancer Cox- The Cancer Letter Page 2 n April 15, 2005 2 inhibitors, the AACR position on intraepithelial The NCI funding went directly from the Institute neoplasia is proving to be unjustified (The Cancer Letter, to a government contractor, BL Seamon and Associates Jan. 7, 2005). Inc., a minority-owned business in Lanham, Md. The company then paid the bills that came in from AACR’s Aftermath of the Cancellation conference vendors. After AACR cancelled the Toronto meeting, the NCI frequently uses this indirect method to help hotels and convention center demanded payment of support conferences and organizations, but what made cancellation damages, arguing that the SARS epidemic the AACR support unusual was the $2-million figure, was confined to area hospitals and didn’t affect normal far more than usual conference grants, sources said. business in the city. NCI also provides direct annual support to AACR The hotels offered to let AACR rebook it’s meeting for four or five scientific workshops. In fiscal 2003, that in June or July, but the association rejected the offer, amount was about $750,000; this support increased to $1 because there was no evidence that the disease would million in 2004. Also, NCI provides about $200,000 to be contained by then, attorney Foster said. support AACR’s young minority scientists program and AACR also declined an offer to rebook in Toronto about $150,000 for the association’s grants to faculty in a later year, because it had contracts in other cities from historically black colleges. for several years in the future. In subsequent years, the association’s anticipated growth was expected to Resolution of Dispute outpace Toronto’s available hotel rooms, Foster said. Foster, named by a meetings industry publication AACR selected Washington as the location for the as one of the 25 most influential people in the industry, rescheduled meeting, and estimated at the time that the said he prevailed on Travelers to reconsider its denial bill for that meeting would be $5 million. of AACR’s claim. Faced with a potential bill of $6.2 million Canadian “We forced them to go back and read their own (about $4.97 million under the current exchange rate), policy, and realize that [SARS] was not an excluded AACR filed a claim under its “Showstoppers Policy” event,” Foster said. “It was within the terms of the for convention cancellation through AON Insurance, convention cancellation policy.” underwritten by Travelers. Travelers initially denied As a result of AACR’s Toronto situation, meetings AACR’s claim for coverage of lost revenue and defense organizers can’t get insurance for epidemics and against claims of breech of contract.