A prominent cancer center in Houston has ousted three of five scientists whom federal authorities identified as being involved in Chinese efforts to steal American research. Peter Pisters, the president of MD Anderson Cancer Center, told the Houston Chronicle that the National Institutes of Health wrote to the cancer center last year detailing conflicts of interest and unreported foreign income by five faculty members, and gave it 30 days to respond. 1 cancer center made it an obvious target, but the newspaper report doesn't say what evidence of intellectual property theft was uncovered at the facility. A 2017 FBI report found that intellectual property theft by China costs the U.S. as much as 600 billion annually. "This is part of a much larger issue the country is facing," Pisters told the Chronicle.

Source: ABC News April 20, 2019 16:24 UTC