[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 63 (Friday, May 19, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E772-E773]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   THE UCSD CANCER CENTER: WORLD-CLASS RESEARCH, GAINING WORLD-CLASS 
                            PRIVATE SUPPORT

                                 ______
                                 

                     HON. RANDY ``DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 18, 2000

  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of my 
colleagues the exciting, new research opportunities being pursued by 
the UCSD Cancer Center in La Jolla, California, and to recognize some 
very generous families and organizations for the extraordinary private 
support they have recently pledged to provide to the Center.
  The UCSD Cancer Center is now undergoing a tremendous period of 
growth and resurgence. Directed by the distinguished Dr. David Tarin, 
the goal of the Center is to research and help deploy the many new 
treatments and protocols now being developed to fight and prevent 
cancer. Through the leadership of people like Labor Appropriations 
Chairman John Porter, the Republican majority in Congress has 
successfully raised the bar of investment in health research and cancer 
research as a major national priority of the people of the United 
States. Now this research, in many cases, requires a next step: the 
testing and evaluation of treatments and medicines through clinical 
trials. Such trials are a major focus of the UCSD Cancer Center, so 
that we can bring together medical professionals, researchers and 
patients to the benefit of everyone. By consolidating research and 
treatment at the UCSD Cancer Center, we will learn more about treating 
and preventing this horrible scourge of cancer, in a way that preserves 
and enhances the dignity and peace of cancer patients, their families 
and their loved ones.
  Such cancer is not inexpensive. Conversely, though, I believe that we 
cannot afford not to invest in such a center. It gaining increasing 
recognition from the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer 
Institute, directed by my friend Dr. Rick Klausner. It is the focus of 
a regional effort by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, to 
apply local tobacco settlement funds to combat and prevent cancer.
  I want to pay particular attention to several families who have put 
forth their own treasure to the improvement of this vital Center. 
Within the past several months, private gifts totalling $47 million 
have been pledged for this purpose.
  In thanksgiving for a gift of $20 million by San Diego Padres 
majority owner John Moores and his wife Rebecca, the center will be 
named the John and Rebecca Moores UCSD Cancer Center.
  Longtime investment banker and attorney Jerome Katzin and his wife 
Miriam have pledged another $15 million.
  And many more gifts large and small, by San Diego's leading families 
and by people whose lives have been touched by cancer, have been 
pledged to this Center.
  Mr. Speaker, this Center is gaining national recognition in its 
field. As a strong supporter of cancer research and of this Center, I 
want to bring both the Center and its private family supporters to the 
attention of my colleagues in Congress and to the country.
  I commend my colleagues to read the attached article from the San 
Diego Union-Tribune, describing both the Center and the gifts of its 
supporters in greater detail.

            [From the San Diego Union-Tribune, May 5, 2000]

               World-Class Cancer Center Planned at UCSD

                           (By Cheryl Clark)

       A regional cancer center financed by gifts of $47 million 
     from local families is to be built in La Jolla, consolidating 
     research and treatment in what UCSD officials hope will 
     become one of the nation's best places for care.

[[Page E773]]

       The plan is to bring researchers, clinicians, prevention 
     specialists and educators under one roof in an effort that 
     UCSD Chancellor Robert Dynes called a ``bench-to-bedside 
     approach to conquering cancer.''
       ``San Diego deserves a cancer center that ranks among the 
     world's best, and UCSD is the logical place,'' Dynes said 
     yesterday.
       University officials hope the coordinated center eventually 
     will receive the higher level and prestigious 
     ``comprehensive'' designation from the National Cancer 
     Institute.
       That label would not only attract more qualified scientists 
     and clinicians, it would be a magnet for funding for clinical 
     trials of cancer compounds from the federal government, 
     private foundations and pharmaceutical companies.
       The announcement follows several ambitious and far-reaching 
     developments recently in the San Diego medical community 
     focusing on cancer research and treatment.
       ``We can now see on the horizon the realization of a 
     dream,'' said Dr. David Tarin, associate dean for cancer 
     affairs and the new center's director. ``At the moment, we 
     are scattered at 24 sites and at two hospitals.''
       The largest of the gifts was $20 million pledged by Padres 
     majority owner John Moores and his wife, Rebecca. The center 
     will be named the John and Rebecca Moores UCSD Cancer Center.
       The Moores were unavailable for comment, but in a written 
     statement they said, ``When we lived in Houston, we observed 
     the profound impact of a vigorous, highly regarded cancer 
     center equally dedicated to research and patient care.''
       Another large contributor was Jerome Katzin, an attorney 
     and former investment banker with Kuhn, Loeb & Co./Lehman 
     Brothers for 35 years. He and his wife, Miriam, pledged $15 
     million.
       Officials hope to start construction next year, following 
     approval by the University of California Board of Regents.
       The facility will be built on 2.4 acres southeast of 
     Thornton Hospital near the Shiley Eye Center and the Perlman 
     Ambulatory Care Center.
       The five-story structure would house laboratories, 
     outpatient treatment areas and conference and office space 
     for teaching. Patients requiring acute care would be treated 
     at other area hospitals such as Thornton or UCSD Medical 
     Center in Hillcrest.
       Dynes, Tarin and David Bailey, dean of UCSD's School of 
     Medicine, said they are halfway to their fund-raising goal. 
     They anticipate the project will cost $75 million to build 
     and an additional $25 million to support clinical trials and 
     treatment programs. They said they are confident they will 
     raise the remaining $53 million.
       Numerous physicians and patients have criticized the 
     region's existing cancer treatment resources, saying some 
     patients who want to try certain experimental chemotherapies 
     have to travel to larger programs in Los Angeles, Houston, 
     Seattle, Boston or New York.
       UCSD officials said they have long wanted to enhance their 
     cancer program. Two years ago their application for National 
     Cancer Institute funding received poor marks and was 
     rejected, in part because evaluators said UCSD lacked a 
     coordinated system by which UCSD and regional molecular 
     biology research is translated to clinical care.
       UCSD also was criticized for its lack of a formal vehicle 
     for treating cancer in children. Plans to merge UCSD's 
     pediatric program with that at Children's Hospital have 
     fallen apart several times.
       ``It was mandated by the NCI that children should be 
     included in clinical trials,'' Tarin said. ``We want to make 
     that a major component.''
       Bailey said he is having conversations with Children's 
     Hospital and hopes to finally have an agreement.
       Blair, Sadler, Children's president and chief executive 
     officer, said such a collaboration would be ``an ideal 
     marriage'' because Children's now has about 200 pediatric 
     cancer patients enrolled in clinical trials and is following
       UCSD is in a unique position to work on all sorts of common 
     cancers, Tarin said, especially those that are not more 
     prevalent in the San Diego area, such as uterine and cervical 
     cancer and melanoma, which can be caused by overexposure to 
     the sun.
       ``By assembling everything in one place, in a single 
     building, we hope that the whole of our endeavor will become 
     more than the sum of several parts, and that delivery of care 
     will be a model for other communities to build upon,'' Tarin 
     said.
       ``We need to understand the scale of this venture,'' he 
     said. ``Fifteen hundred people every day will die of this 
     disease. That may not sound like a great number, but it 
     represents about five jumbo jet planes crashing, and that 
     would be big news.''
       UCSD is not the only major medical system trying to develop 
     a cancer center. Seven months ago, cancer experts with the 
     Scripps organization announced plans to build one and to 
     apply for the NCI's ``comprehensive'' designation.
       But UCSD appears to be the furthest along. Last week, NCI 
     awarded UCSD's Dr. Thomas Kipps, a cancer immunologist, $16.5 
     million to direct a coordinated attack against chronic 
     lymphocytic leukemia, the most common blood cancer among 
     adults, at nine institutions around the country.
       Also under way is an effort, spearheaded by Tarin, to use 
     $100 million of the $1 billion in settlement money from 
     tobacco litigation to organize a regional collaboration of 
     all cancer centers.
       That effort, advocated by county Supervisors Ron Roberts 
     and Dianne Jacob, is in the planning stages, and a consultant 
     was hired for $500,000 to write a report about what would be 
     required to make that happen.
       Roberts, who attended the news conference yesterday where 
     architectural plans for the cancer building were unveiled, 
     said: ``I don't think we ever assumed there wouldn't be 
     rivalry between the institutions (Scripps and UCSD). But our 
     dream was that we could link them regionally in a way they'd 
     never been before.
       ``Our dream was that we could compete with the Boston, 
     Houston and New York cancer centers in providing services. 
     But we have a long way to go.''
       Dr. Ernest Beutler, head of the Scripps molecular and 
     experimental medicine department and chairman of the new 
     Scripps cancer center's board of governors, said he doesn't 
     see the two cancer center efforts ``as a competitive thing.''
       ``I don't think there could be too many people trying to 
     make a dent in the cancer problem,'' he said.
       Beutler declined to say how much Scripps has received in 
     donations or whether Scripps and UCSD might be competing for 
     the same philanthropic dollars.
       ``There will be areas where we certainly want to work with 
     UCSD, which has some very good people,'' he said.

     

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