At the beginning of June, Ohio State University research Michael Podell published an important study related to his feline AIDS research. Podell’s findings offered important clues about how drug abuse quickens the rate of AIDS infection and AIDS-related dementia. But a little more than a week later OSU announced that Podell was leaving OSU. Podell says it was because he never received the support he need from the university in dealing with animal rights activists.
In an e-mail to Columbus newspaper The Other Paper, Podell maintained that lack of support from OSU was the main reason for his exit. Podell wrote,
The Ohio State University could not provide an environment conducive to continuation of my research or my role as a clinician and instructor. There were many opportunities for these problems to be addressed appropriately, but an insufficient response pattern was taken by the administration here.
OSU maintains that it did all it could to help and support Podell, but OSU public relations flak Earle Holland unintentionally confirmed Podell’s point. He told The Other Paper that Podell wanted the university to issue a public statement supporting him and condemning the animal rights protesters. Holland went on to add that,
Mike [Podell] would like to have a definitive statement out of the institution to put a stop to this. That’s not something an institution can do.
So OSU had a $1.68 million grant from the federal government (which was awarded to OSU, not to Podell) and a top notch medical researcher, and it considered it beyond the pale to issue a press release unequivocally defending his research? It’s hard for me to think of a more pathetic institutional response.
Certainly it’s unfortunate to see Podell fleeing OSU due to animal rights activists, but since OSU was unwilling to grow a spine he had little choice.
Sources:
Embattled researcher leaving. David Lore, The Columbus Dispatch, June 12, 2002.
Cat AIDS researcher says Ohio State didn’t back him. Josh Caton, The Other Paper, June 20, 2002.