Revisiting a 1930s Scandal, AACR to Rename a Prize

摘要

Cornelius Rhoads was a pioneering cancer researcher, but his angry words―and an offensive boast about killing patients―cast a shadow over the Rhoads prize The Cornelius P. Rhoads Memorial Award has long been a coveted prize in cancer research. Named for one of the most prominent American medical researchers of the mid-20th century and a director of the Sloan-Kettering Institute, the prize is awarded each year to a promising researcher under the age of 40; it has gone to eminent scientists such as Eric Lander of the Whitehead Institute and Scott Lowe of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. But Rhoads's name was removed from the prize this week following an investigation of Rhoads's conduct as a medical researcher in Puerto Rico in 1931. The controversy arises from a notorious letter Rhoads wrote but never mailed during his stint at the Presbyterian Hospital in San Juan. The text was publicized anew last fall by biology professor Edwin Vazquez, who stumbled on it while preparing a lecture for his students at the University of Puerto Rico. In the letter, Rhoads denigrated Puerto Ricans as "the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever to inhabit this sphere. ... What the island needs is not public health work but a tidal wave or something to totally exterminate the population." Rhoads followed with a shocking assertion: "I have done my best to further the process of extermination by killing off eight and transplanting cancer into several more."