Petrelis Files

March 1, 2004

Mr. Daniel Okrent
Public Editor
The New York Times
New York, NY
Email: public@nytimes.com


Dear Mr. Okrent:

As you must know by now, a controversy has arisen over The New York Times’ decision to fire freelancer Jay Blotcher, who covered the Hudson Valley for the paper.

The Washington Post’s widely respected media critic, Howard Kurtz, reported in his February 23 column that the Times pushed Blotcher out of a job because of his past affiliation with the AIDS protest group ACT UP. [1]

Following on the heels of the Post’s column was an opinion piece in Gay City News on February 26, which pointed out that Lawrence K. Altman, medical correspondent for the Times, “is a former employee of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and he regularly reports on that agency. Altman also sits on an advisory board that administers a CDC fellowship program. In other words, his relationship with the CDC continues. That would be an actual conflict of interest.” [2]

Gay playwright and AIDS community leader Larry Kramer, in a February 29 letter to Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., protested to the publisher about the paper’s “ridiculous dismissal” of Blotcher. Kramer also raised the matter of Altman’s inherent conflict of interest in covering the federal health agency. [3]

Here are a few details about Altman’s past and current relationships with the CDC, which you may not be aware of.

He graduated from the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, class of ’63, and then served as an EIS investigator for the agency.

In 2001 he recounted in an article for the Times, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the EIS, of his time in 1963 investigating, as an EIS officer, an outbreak of botulism in Tennessee. [4]

Altman also served as editor of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for three years in the 1960s. [5]

After leaving the CDC, he eventually became chief of the U.S. Public Health Service's Division of Epidemiology and Immunization in Washington. [6]

Altman has for several years has also served as an advisor to the National Foundation for the CDC, a nonprofit advocacy organization created by Congress in 1992 that began operating in 1995 with a $500,000 grant from the federal government. The foundation receives $500,000 annually from Congress to carry out its mission, while the bulk of its operating budget comes from public and corporate donations. [7]

The 2001 annual report for the foundation reveals Altman made a donation to the organization, though the amount was not disclosed in the report. [8]

Currently, Altman is on the CDC foundation’s journalism fellowship advisory board. He receives no compensation from this foundation. His colleagues include representatives from ABC News, CNN and the Los Angeles Times. [9]

Not only that, Altman presently sits on the board of directors of the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation of New York, a philanthropic health care and education charity that owns substantial shares of stock in pharmaceutical and medical technology firms, such as Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Pfizer and Schering Plough. [10]

According to the IRS 990 return for the Macy Foundation, part of Altman’s contact information is the Times’ address and his direct phone number at the paper. [11]

By the way, the foundation reports more than $140 million in assets in the IRS return.

After reading this IRS return, I phoned the foundation and was told that Altman has been a member of the board since 1985.

Additionally, he is a longstanding clinical professor at New York University’s Medical Center’s School of Medicine, and his contact information in this capacity lists the Times as the place where students and teaching colleagues can reach him. He joined the NYU staff in 1970. [12, 13]

Why is it Altman is allowed by the Times to have past and current associations with federal health agencies, serve as a professor at a major university, sit on the board of a nonprofit organization, and the paper does not view any of this as a conflict of interest?

While at the same time, Blotcher’s prior connection to ACT UP is reason for dismissal?

(Full disclosure: I am a friend of Blotcher’s and have been since we met at an ACT UP meeting in 1987.)

I would appreciate a prompt reply.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis


Sources:

1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63872-2004Feb23.html
2. http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_309/expediencydressed.html
3. http://www.mpetrelis.blogspot.com/
4. http://www.epimonitor.net/EpiMonday/PreviousIssues/01-04-23.htm
5. http://www.uiowa.edu/~ournews/2000/march/0323med_reporter.html
6. http://www.molbio.princeton.edu/courses/mb427/1999/bios/altman_sketch.html
7. http://documents.guidestar.org/2002/582/106/2002-582106707-1-9.pdf
8. http://www.cdcfoundation.org/pdfs/annualreport_2001.pdf, P. 16
9. http://www.cdcfoundation.org/fellowships/knight_leadership.html
10. http://www.josiahmacyfoundation.org/board.html
11. http://documents.guidestar.org/2002/135/596/2002-135596895-1-F.pdf
12. http://www.outreach.psu.edu/C&I/HealthReporting/default.asp?WhichPage=agenda
13. http://www.med.nyu.edu/clinicians/altmal01.html