[GK3]

MLT responds in an email;  the link is: https://tessier-lavigne-lab.stanford.edu...ford-daily


Dear Faculty and Staff Colleagues,

Many of you may have seen an article in the Stanford Daily today that makes a string of false allegations regarding some of my scientific findings on neural degeneration. For those of you who wish to know the facts, please visit this link at my lab website.

Sincerely,

Marc Tessier-Lavigne
President, Stanford University
Bing Presidential Professor and Head of the Tessier-Lavigne Laboratory at Stanford University

What's next? MTL suing the Daily for libel? "Oh, they wanted fun on campus, so they trumped up this false allegations to get rid of me". . . .

I do think some publications have a tendency to overstate allegations of misconduct.  The motives for such overstatements may vary depending on the circumstances, from trying to gain clicks by sensationalizing a small story to wanting to be the person who breaks a big story even though the author doesn't (yet) have the goods.  The Stan Cohen story in the Daily struck me as that sort of overreach, so I'm on high alert when I read takedowns in the Daily.  On its face, however, this MTL story seems well-sourced, including reference to statements by several anonymous senior scientists/executives at Genentech.  MTL would be foolish to sue for defamation as the Daily would likely win an anti-SLAPP motion, assuming the sources are legit.

What's very bad for MTL is the article's meticulous documentation of his (and his proxies') inability to answer questions straight -- and to get contradicted by other inconvenient facts. I find this denial very hard to believe.

Sure sounds like the BoT finally needs to step in and tell him to either resign or be fired.  Of course my familiarity with the Presidents of Stanford go back to Wallace Sterling.  He and my father were fellow doctoral students at Stanford in the early 1930's, different disciplines but my father always had a lot of good things to say about Sterling.  I met him on a number of occasions and always came away impressed.  His issue of the Jewish Doctoral Students remains a negative on on otherwise fine career.

[GK3]

MLT responds in an email;  the link is: https://tessier-lavigne-lab.stanford.edu...ford-daily


Dear Faculty and Staff Colleagues,

Many of you may have seen an article in the Stanford Daily today that makes a string of false allegations regarding some of my scientific findings on neural degeneration. For those of you who wish to know the facts, please visit this link at my lab website.

Sincerely,

Marc Tessier-Lavigne
President, Stanford University
Bing Presidential Professor and Head of the Tessier-Lavigne Laboratory at Stanford University

What's next? MTL suing the Daily for libel? "Oh, they wanted fun on campus, so they trumped up this false allegations to get rid of me". . . .

I do think some publications have a tendency to overstate allegations of misconduct.  The motives for such overstatements may vary depending on the circumstances, from trying to gain clicks by sensationalizing a small story to wanting to be the person who breaks a big story even though the author doesn't (yet) have the goods.  The Stan Cohen story in the Daily struck me as that sort of overreach, so I'm on high alert when I read takedowns in the Daily.  On its face, however, this MTL story seems well-sourced, including reference to statements by several anonymous senior scientists/executives at Genentech.  MTL would be foolish to sue for defamation as the Daily would likely win an anti-SLAPP motion, assuming the sources are legit.

What's very bad for MTL is the article's meticulous documentation of his (and his proxies') inability to answer questions straight -- and to get contradicted by other inconvenient facts. I find this denial very hard to believe.

Sure sounds like the BoT finally needs to step in and tell him to either resign or be fired.  Of course my familiarity with the Presidents of Stanford go back to Wallace Sterling.  He and my father were fellow doctoral students at Stanford in the early 1930's, different disciplines but my father always had a lot of good things to say about Sterling.  I met him on a number of occasions and always came away impressed.  His issue of the Jewish Doctoral Students remains a negative on on otherwise fine career.