Former FDA Chief Fired as Dean of UCSF Medical School

[kurth]

December 15, 2007
Dean Says Firing Came After Query on Finances
By JONATHAN D. GLATER

The dean of the highly ranked medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, was fired this week, and he suggested on Friday that the move came as a result of questions he had raised about the institution’s financial accounting.

The dean, David A. Kessler, a former commissioner of the federal Food and Drug Administration, wrote in an e-mail message to faculty members at the medical school that he had “discovered a series of financial irregularities that predated my appointment,” and that he “endeavored to work with the university ever since to solve these problems.” He wrote that on Thursday, the chancellor of the university fired him.

Dr. Kessler, a pediatrician, is known for working to restrict cigarette marketing to children at the Food and Drug Administration. He was the dean of the medical school at Yale before he took the $540,000-a-year post at San Francisco...

Dr. Kessler said he asked the university to have a complete audit undertaken, but that the request was rebuffed. Instead, he said, in June Dr. Bishop, the chancellor, asked him to resign. Dr. Kessler did not do so. On Thursday, Dr. Kessler said, he was told to clean out his office before the weekend...

The university auditor investigated Dr. Kessler’s concerns about improper accounting, according to the statement, and concluded in June 2007 that “the whistleblower allegations were not sustained.” Two additional reviews by the university, one by an outside accounting firm, also found “no evidence of financial irregularities and, in addition, concluded that the School of Medicine is in very strong financial condition,” according to the statement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/us/15whistle.html

[Selatius]

1. How about we hire an impartial auditing agency for taxpayers to see if the university is truthful?

I would like all public universities audited by law if they are not done so now. It might reveal where some of the excessive inflation in tuition prices might be coming from.