New Joslin CEO's gifts suit tight times

KIMBALL

Excerpts from the Globe's blog on the Boston-area medical community.

Research money isn't what it used to be. Neither is the leadership of the Joslin Diabetes Center.

But Ranch C. Kimball, Joslin's first non-physician president and CEO, won "surprisingly positive" reviews from scientists when he made the rounds at the Harvard affiliate before being named. A memo summarizing the scientists' impressions of Kimball also said he had "obvious intellectual gifts and understood researchers' needs."

Kimball comes from the Romney administration, where he was secretary of economic development. He takes over from Dr. C. Ronald Kahn, who returned to full-time research in September.

"We realize this is a probably an unusual choice of a president," said Dr. Steven E. Shoelson, a Joslin researcher and clinician. "I think it relates to the specific demands of the time. With NIH funding going down and more and more competition for research dollars, the board felt a specific need to strengthen our ability to compete for development dollars."

Dr. John Abramson argued in his 2004 book "Overdosed America" that pharmaceutical companies are distorting medical knowledge. Now he writes in the Lancet medical journal that too many people -- healthy women of any age and men over 65 -- are taking statins without proof they need them.

A clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and former chair of family practice at Lahey Clinic, he questions National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines recommending the blockbuster drugs for people who may have high cholesterol but don't have clogged arteries.