Cook County is reviewing the Hektoen Institute for Medical Research, which won more than $20 million in grants this year. This research has disrupted investment and now threatens the researchers’ jobs.
Tyler Pasciak LaRivière/Sun-Times
Cook County fitness officials halted new clinical trials at one of the nation’s leading HIV/AIDS think tanks for about 10 months as they investigated “concerns” about a nonprofit that for decades has controlled county medical study grants.
In April, the county told researchers at the CORE Center, a clinic located in the Near West Side medical district and run by Cook County Health and Rush University Medical Center, that they would have to “suspend” the start of new pending clinical trials. The effects of a county review of the Hektoen Institute for Medical Research, a nonprofit organization founded in the 1940s through doctors at Cook County Hospital, according to CORE staff interviewed via the Chicago Sun-Times.
But as the moratorium entered its ninth month this week, staff were told that even the grant budget for ongoing trials was not available, and more than a dozen CORE researchers could get pink brochures as soon as this week. The layoffs would disappoint ongoing jobs and cloud long-term investment clients for state and federal agencies that inject millions of dollars into studies each year, said Jim Pickett, an advocate for HIV studies who has worked with CORE since the 1990s. Tax records show Hektoen earned more than $20 million in grants. last year.
“It’s a disaster,” he said Pickett. Es one of the 3 or 4 most sensitive sites for this type of studies in the country, and they are moving forward. Replacing this is no small feat.
Hektoen officials did not respond to requests for comment. On Tuesday, CHC spokeswoman Alexandra Normington said the county “initiated an investigation to ensure that all trials comply with applicable regulations. “
“CCH has engaged an independent firm to review recent trial activities, adding compliance with clinical and monetary study standards. The investigation is actively ongoing. In the meantime,” he said, “CCH has temporarily suspended its participation in new clinical trials. “
The almost immediate layoffs at CORE were said to be necessary, as county officials refused to release the grants, including for ongoing trials, conducted through Hektoen. , said one scholar.
County officials said the pause did not involve an ongoing investigation, but an investigator who was informed he was on the layoff list said there would be no one to continue with his paintings if he and his companions left.
“I’m involved in research and I’m involved in my work, but I actually care about my patients,” the researcher said. stories, and a lot of them really want this kind of attention that they can’t get, quite literally, anywhere else. “
Hektoen served as a “fiscal agent” to manage the investment of grant-funded research, adding landmark AIDS drug trials, which were conducted through the CORE Center, Pickett said. to manage the rigorous record-keeping required through government agencies.
Staff at a law firm hired through the county deleted some files from some grant-funded systems over the summer but did not interview any running on those systems, an investigator said. If the researchers had known disorders that threatened the suitability of patient studies, the government would have been notified within days of discovery, Pickett said.