Gardner, William Ullman, Ph.D.
(CTR Scientific Advisory Board grant reviewer) Dr. Gardner worked for Counsel for Tobacco Research -- U.S.A., Inc. He was a member of CTR's committee which reviewed grant applications in 1974. (UCSF000134) Gardner served on the Scientific Advisory Board for CTR and was a CTR Scientific Director. (N.M.'s CTR Who's Who) (PMI's Introduction to Privilege Log and Glossary of Names, Estate of Burl Butler v. PMI, et al, April 19, 1996). See Gardiner, Bill, TTLA Almanac - Names.Biographical Information:
William Ullman Gardner was born in Nobles County, Minnesota, on November 11, 1907, the eldest child of James Arthur Gardner (1879-1959), a farmer, and the former Josephine Ullman. He would later list his birthplace as Kinbrae, Minnesota, a town that had 21 residents when the 2000 census was taken.
Gardner earned a bachelor’s of science from South Dakota State College in 1930, then a master’s of art and a doctorate from the University of Missouri. While working on his Ph.D., he and one of his professors, Charles W. Turner, developed the first
mammalian bioassay for prolactin.
Gardner joined the Anatomy Department of Yale University in 1933, got married the following year, and remained at Yale for the remainder of his career. He gradually made his way up the ranks of the Anatomy Department, eventually becoming a full professor and chair of the department, and then being named E. K. Hunt Professor of Anatomy in 1958. He also was active in many research organizations; highlights included serving as President of the American Association Anatomists and on various National Research Council committees.
Cancer in particular became one of Gardner’s focuses as he became recognized as an authority on pituitary tumors and the induction of tumors by hormones. He oversaw Yale’s so-called “Mouse House,” a small brick building located between the Boyer Center and the EPH building that housed thousands of research mice. During the 1940s, he was the secretary and treasurer and then the president of the American Association for Cancer Research, also functioning as associated editor of its journal from 1931 to 1959. He later became involved in the International Union Against Cancer (UICC), serving as its vice president from 1949 to 1950 and as its president from 1970 to 1974. In addition, Gardner and was a member of the Board of Directors of the American Cancer Society and was associated with the National Cancer Society in a variety of capacities.
Given these credentials, it was a surprise to many when Gardner agreed to serve on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Council for Tobacco Research in 1971. Yet it didn’t come as a shock to M. D. Anderson Hospital epidemiologist Eleanor J. Macdonald. In a letter to Alexander Holtzman of Philip Morris, she depicted Gardner as having ridden the coattails of Yale cancer researcher George Milton Smith (1879-1951). According to Macdonald, when Smith died and Gardner assumed many of his responsibilities, “general misery hit the place. … [Gardner] was a blight. The joy was gone, and Yale ceased to be the nerve center of cancer research, that it was under Smith. … [Gardner] has worked himself up politically in the International Union and the Cancer Society. He will be 65 next year, and through at Yale. The Tobacco Council could surely do better. On paper he looks fine. In fact, no!”
Gardner served on the CTR’s Scientific Advisory Board from November 15, 1971, to February 26, 1985, acting as chair from 1973 to 1981. He died of Parkinson’s disease at the Yale New Haven Hospital on February 14, 1988.
Sources:
Allan M. Brandt, The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America (New York: Basic Books, 2007).
William Ullman Gardner resume (http://tobaccodocuments.org/ctr/10382826-2843.html#images).
Stanton A. Glantz, John Slade, Lisa A. Bero, Peter Hanauer and Deborah E. Barnes, The Cigarette Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes: America’s Hundred-Year Cigarette War and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (New York: Vintage Books, 1996).
Eleanor J. Macdonald, September 14, 1971, letter to Alexander Holtzman, http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/1005136139-6140.html#images.
J. Meites and R. R. Anderson, “Charles Wesley Turner, 1897–1975: A Brief Biography,”
http://www.asas.org/Bios/Turnerbio.pdf
For More Biographical Information:
American Men & Women of Science. A Biographical Directory of Today's Leaders in Physical, Biological, and Related Sciences, various editions.
Who’s Who in America, various editions.