Scientists sent to prison for

fraudulent conduct
Geoff Maslen 25 April 2013 Issue No:269

Every year around the world, scientists and other researchers are found to have committed
various acts of fraud, often after they were discovered to have manipulated research findings.
But rarely do they suffer any more severe punishment than being dismissed and, occasionally,
having their reputations irreparably damaged in the media.

Sometimes, though, a fraudster is actually sent to jail as happened last month when a British
scientist was convicted of scientific fraud after falsifying research data. Steven Eaton became
the first person to serve time under the UKs 1999 Good Laboratory Practice Regulations and
was sentenced to three months in jail.

Eaton had tampered with data from pre-clinical trials of an anti-cancer drug while working at
the now-closed Edinburgh branch of US pharmaceutical company Aptuit.

The BBC reported that in handing down the sentence, Sheriff Michael OGrady said had the
fraud not been discovered, Eaton could have caused cancer patients unquestionable harm.

The case began in 2009 when the pharmaceutical company noticed irregularities in Eatons data
while conducting quality control procedures.

The company notified the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency which,
after conducting an investigation, found Eaton had been falsifying results of experiments to
make them appear successful as far back as 2003.

Ivan Oransky, a clinical assistant professor at New York University and co-author of the
blog Retraction Watch, which collates notices of retractions and scientific fraud, said it was
unusual to see researchers jailed for professional misconduct.

Oransky said that in the past five years, the US Office of Research Integrity had found more
than 40 researchers guilty of misconduct but only two had served any time in prison.

One was Eric T Poehlman, a scientist in the field of human obesity and ageing, who was jailed
for six months for falsifying data in a grant application. He also published fraudulent research
alleging that hormone replacement injections could serve as a therapy for menopause when it
had no proven medical benefits at all.

Another researcher to face a term in jail was Luk van Parijs, an associate professor of biology at
MITs centre for cancer research. He was sacked for misconduct after fabricating and falsifying
research data in a paper, several unpublished manuscripts, and grant applications.

In March 2011, Van Parijs pleaded guilty in a US court to making a false statement on a federal
grant application. The government called for a six-month jail term because of the seriousness of
the fraud, which involved a US$2-million government grant.

After several prominent scientists, including Van Parijs' former post-doc supervisor, pleaded for
clemency, Van Parijs was sentenced to six months of home detention with electronic
monitoring, plus 400 hours of community service and a payment to MIT of US$61,117
restitution for the already-spent grant money that MIT had to return to the National Institutes
of Health.

In another instance, in 2010, an anesthesiologist named Scott Reuben was sentenced to six
months in prison for healthcare fraud. This followed the revelation that he had fabricated data
and had committed related misdeeds in six drug trials.

Reuben, a former chief of the acute pain clinic at a medical clinic in Springfield, Massachusetts,
was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, to pay $361,932 in restitution to the drug companies
that funded his research and to forfeit $50,000 in assets. After serving time in prison, Reuben
had to undergo three years of supervised release, the Justice Department said.

These researchers, however, remain among the few of an undoubtedly large number of
crooked scientists to face a court and be punished for their crimes.
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RETRIEVED FROM: http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130425143432184
16 August 2014
Case Western researcher sanctioned
for plagiarism
By Ben SutherlyThe Columbus Dispatch Friday August 9, 2013 8:49 PM

The federal Office of Research Integrity has taken action against a Case Western Reserve
University professor for plagiarism, the second researcher associated with the universitys
dermatology department against whom federal action has been taken this year.

As part of a deal disclosed on Thursday, Pratima Karnik has agreed to have her research
supervised and its content certified as legitimate for two years. She may not serve on any U.S.
Public Health Service advisory committee, board or peer-review committee, or as a consultant.

Karnik was found to have plagiarized significant portions of another researchers grant
application that she reviewed on behalf of the National Institute of Arthritis and
Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, and the National Institutes of Health. She used the
information in her own grant application.

This is the scientific-research version of insider trading, said Ivan Oransky, co-founder of
Retraction Watch, a blog about retractions, and executive editor of Reuters Health.

In March, the Office of Research Integrity found that Bryan William Doreian, a former
postdoctoral fellow in Case Westerns dermatology department, had falsified data in a paper.
Doreian agreed to retract the paper, which had appeared in 2009 in the online
journal Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Its rare for two researchers from the same university let alone department to be
disciplined in short succession by the Office of Research Integrity. The office has taken
administrative action against only six U.S. researchers this year.

Case Western declined to grant an interview today. In a prepared statement, the university,
located in Cleveland, said the cases were not related and the researchers did not work
together.

The private research university declined comment on additional sanctions that it imposed. It
would not say whether Karnik remains employed there, though she was listed yesterday as a
member of the departments faculty.

The university regrets any instances of research misconduct and takes each one very
seriously, the university said in the statement.

Karnik could not be reached for comment.

Doreian founded the Wysebridge Patent Bar Review in Pennsylvania, which helps people
prepare for the patent bar exam. He could not be reached for comment late yesterday.

In the two instances cited, the university discovered and reported one to the governments
Office of Research Integrity, and the ORI identified the other and contacted the university,
Case Western said in the statement.

In December, the research-integrity office announced an agreement with Ohio State University
pharmacy professor Terry S. Elton after finding that he had falsified data in six journal articles.
Elton agreed to retract five of the articles; the sixth already had been retracted.

Elton kept his job, but the university described sanctions against him as severe, essentially
cutting off his ability to conduct research. Instead, hes focusing primarily on teaching and
service responsibilities.













RETRIEVED FROM: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/08/09/case-
western-researcher-sanctioned.html
16 August 2014

Prominent Huntington's disease researcher
"fabricated data" in grant applications
By Dr Ed Wild on January 06, 2013 Edited by Dr Jeff Carroll

The National Institute for Healths Office for Research Integrity has ruled that Huntingtons
disease researcher Dr Paul Muchowski, formerly of the Gladstone Institutes at University of
California San Francisco, committed research misconduct by falsifying and fabricating data in
several applications for funding. What does this mean for Muchowskis published HD therapies
research?
The National Institute for Healths Office for Research Integrity has ruled that noted
Huntingtons disease researcher Dr Paul Muchowski, of the Gladstone Institutes at University of
California, San Francisco, committed research misconduct by falsifying and fabricating data in
several applications for funding. Muchowski has now resigned from his position with the
Gladstone Institutes.
As the leader of a large Huntingtons disease research group, Muchowski has been linked with
some of the most eye-catching research breakthroughs in recent years - including drug
candidates for KMO inhibition and CB2 activation. His findings have featured in some of the top
scientific journals and weve reported on them here at HDBuzz.
Muchowskis applications for research funding were reviewed in detail by the Gladstone
Institutes and the NIH. The investigation revealed four instances where work that was
described as complete had in fact not been done, and one case where an image showing one
type of brain cell was mislabelled as another type.
The NIH concluded that Muchowski had committed research misconduct by falsifying and
fabricating data. Muchowski accepted the ruling and agreed to have his research supervised
for two years, but the NIH has allowed him to keep his funding and apply for future grants.
So does this ruling mean that some Huntingtons disease research findings are now in question?
The full facts of the case may not emerge for some time, but its reassuring that after two
detailed investigations, nobody involved has yet called for the withdrawal of any of
Muchowskis published research, according to our sources.
Equally importantly, independent researchers working on the KMO and CB2 pathways, and
other findings of Muchowskis group, have carried out research that supports those published
results. So - as far as we can tell on the basis of the information available right now - this
development doesnt mean we have to abandon those promising lines of enquiry.
Were sorry to be kicking off our 2013 research news coverage with such a dark cloud, but take
it from us, theres sunnier news on the way.













RETRIEVED FROM: http://en.hdbuzz.net/109
16 August 2014

The Case of Dr. Danut Marcu: Serial Plagiarism and Signing False
Statements
by Alexander Soifer
Editor, Geombinatorics
Princeton University, Mathematics, Fine Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544
mailto:asoifer@princeton.edu

On December 2, 2006 my attention has been brought to one of Geombinatorics' authors, who is
described in Wikipedia as follows:

Danut Marcu ... claims to have authored 378 scientific papers. Marcu is frequently accused of
plagiarism. The editors ofStudia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Informatica decided to ban Marcu
from their journal for this reason, as did the editors of4OR: A Quarterly Journal of Operations
Research [Springer]. The editors of Geometriae Dedicata state that they suspect Marcu of
plagiarism, as he submitted a manuscript which is "more-or-less word for word the same" as a
paper by Lindstrm. Grossman, Kageyama, Pettet, and anonymous reviewers have accused
Marcu of plagiarism in MathSciNet reviews.

While Wikipedia is a source of "soft" information, in this case it grounded its assessment in hard
facts found in MathSciNet Reviews MR2192785, MR2097141, MR2060125, MR2031651,
MR2031645, MR2024191, MR1961850, and MR1899818 by Prof. Jerrold W.
Grossman, Oakland University, Rochester, Minnesota; MathSciNet Review MR1666961 by Prof.
Sanpei Kageyama, Hiroshima University, Japan; MathSciNet Review MR1795035 by Prof. Martin
R. Pettet, University of Toledo, Ohio; and MathSciNet Reviews MR1856038, MR1739530,
MR1427830 and MR1324075 by unidentified reviewers.

On behalf of Geombinatorics' Editorial Board I offered Dr. Marcu an opportunity to rebut the
above accusations before I research his submissions and make a decision. Following is his
December 6, 2006 reply in its entirety:

Dear Professor Soifer:

I consider that this very strong attack against me has an answer related to my 10th position in
'The Graph Theory White Pages'. For me, nothing is not new [sic], since years ago these stupid
and ridiculous attacks began. If you will consult the following addresses, perhaps, you will
understand:

http://profiles.yahoo.com/drmarcu

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~sanders/graphtheory/people/Marcu.D.html

Anyway, you decide whatever. I would greately appreciate receiving an answer from you,
concerning my papers submitted to GEOMBINATORICS.

Yours faithfully,

Danut Marcu In reply to my inquiry, Prof. Daniel P. Sanders, the owner of "The Graph Theory
White Pages," wrote: The ranking that Marcu appears 10th on is Most Articles / Authors.
Seehttp://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~sanders/graphtheory/people/ppper.html(This is a bit
outdated, I apologize.) This is an objective statement. This would imply that he writes a lot of
short articles of which he is the only author. I know nothing of whether the work is
original. One would have to trust the journals' editors. I am not familiar with the journals that
he publishes in, so I cannot say anything there either. To sum up, I just let the computer count
various things, and I have no opinion one way or the other of Marcu. There are definitely graph
theorists who believe that he has never published anything original, but they may be
exaggerating.On his website, Dr. Marcu claims that he is an "active member of the New York
Academy of Sciences, since 1997." Dr. Ellis Rubinstein, President and C.E.O. of The New York
Academy of Sciences, replied to my inquiry as follows: A review of our records indicates that he
is not an active member and has not been a member for more than 5 years. I have found Dr.
Marcu's answer bold in font and tone, but not in substance. His non-membership in the New
York Academy did not help, and his "10
th
position in 'The Graph Theory White Pages'" was
utterly irrelevant. I therefore opened an investigation of Dr. Marcu's submissions
to Geombinatorics. Started in late 2003, his submissions were all short (1-3 pages), good
enough and obscure enough for our distinguished referee to approve them. As a result, 4 short
notes have been published. Let us look, at each of them, plus a manuscript that has just been
submitted.

1) On Colouring Finite Planes of Odd Order, Geombinatorics, XIII (3), 2004, 139-140. Marcu
nearly word-for-word repeats Csima, J., Colouring finite planes of odd order, Discrete Math. 49
(1984), no. 3, 309.

2) A Result in the Projective Plane, Geombinatorics XIII(4), 2004, 178-179. Marcu nearly word-
for-word repeats Problem P 77 by Leo Moser and its Solution by Branko Grnbaum, from
Problems Section, Canadian Mathematical Bulletin 7 (1964) 477-478.

3) A Note on the Triangles in Graphs, Geombinatorics XIV(1), 2004, 18-20. Marcu nearly word-
for-word repeats Harary, F., and Melter, R., The graphs with no equilateral triangles, The
Mathematics Student (a quarterly dedicated to the service of students and teachers of
mathematics in India) XLIII(4), 1975, 425-427. Marcu may have been helped when in his
homeland, Romania, this article was reprinted as Harary, F., and Melter, R., The graphs with no
equilateral triangles, Gazeta Mathematica (Romania) 3(1982), 182-183.

4) A Note on the Rooted Loopless Planar Maps, Geombinatorics XVI(2), 2006, 266-269. Marcu
nearly word-for-word repeats Bender, Edward A., and Wormald, Nicholas C., The number of
loopless planar maps, Discrete Math. 54(2), 1985, 235-237.

5) Dr. Marcu has just submitted A Combinatorial Problem on a Match Stick. This submission
repeats, almost word-for-word Problem 787, proposed by T. L. Kaczynski and both solutions, by
Richard A. Gibbs and by Richard L. Breisch (pp. 294-296) from Problems and Solutions section
of Mathematics Magazine 44(5), 1971. Summing up, I have no doubt whatsoever that all4 of
Marcu's publications have been lifted from the cited above works of others, as was his new
submission. Dr. Marcu did not just plagiarize all ideas, all results and all proofs - he has stolen it
all: style, regional spelling, and bibliography of the plagiarized works. Dr. Marcu changed so
little in the papers he appropriated that his process of writing reminds me that of a vacuum
cleaner indiscriminately sucking everything in, and that of a copy machine mechanically printing
everything out. If being an author of a few hundred articles was Dr. Marcu's goal, he has
achieved it, but by fraudulent means. This shortcut to fame cannot withstand the test of time.

In addition to plagiarism, Dr. Marcu has committed 5 counts of knowingly signing false
statements: in copyright forms submitted to us he stated that his manuscripts "contain no
material the publication of which would violate any copyright or other personal or proprietary
right of any other person or entity," an obvious lie, for he lifted complete works protected by
copyrights.

I thank Prof. Igor Pak of MIT and Prof. Jerrold W. Grossman of Oakland University for their
assistance. There will never be another Marcu's publication in Geombinatorics, he is hereby
banned from submitting anything to us. I hope all other journals, publishers, editors, referees,
reviewers, professional organizations, academies and web sites will follow us in imposing
similar bans. My sincere apologies go to the authors and publications referenced above, who
fell victim to this busy serial plagiarist.

As far as Geombinatorics is concerned, the case of Dr. Danut Marcu is hereby closed.






RETRIEVED FROM: http://www.uccs.edu/geombina/the-case-of-dr-danut-marcu.html
17 August 2014
Biggest Offender of Medical Research Misconduct in History?
Posted by David Rothschild on Feb 16, 2012 4:11:00 PM
Research misconduct can cause damage in many ways. Institutions, publishers and patients can
all be affected by the misconduct of a single researcher. A recent case that involves a
researcher at Duke University could go down in history as one of the biggest medical research
frauds ever.
After five years of research, in 2010 it was discovered that oncological researcher, Dr. Anil Potti,
had manipulated the data in a number of his widely distributed papers to prove a theory
worked. Potti was considered by many as being at the forefront of ovarian cancer research.
From the Huffington Post:
Potti's work in individualized treatments for cancer was regarded as "the holy grail of cancer,"
Dr. Rob Califf, the vice chancellor of clinical research at Duke, said on a CBS 60 Minutes
segment. "Personalized cancer treatments, if they work, could be a last hope for people whose
bodies don't respond to the conventional treatments.
According to CBNnews.com, Potti's "research was published in the most presigious medical
journals. And more than a hundred desperately ill people invested their last hopes in Duke's
innovation."
However, in 2010 it was discovered that Potti had falsified information about his education;
saying that he was a Rhode Scholar. It turned out to be untrue. This triggered a further
investigation into verification of his research, which turned out to be falsified.
To date, nine of Dr. Pottis papers on individual cancer treatment and related topics have been
retracted. The blogRetraction Watch reported that Duke has said about a third of Potti's 40 or
so papers would be retracted, and another third would have portions retracted. Journals to
retract his work include Nature Medicine, The Lancet Oncology, PLoS ONE and Blood.
The implications of these retracted papers go beyond data corrections; patients, some with
only months to live, had already enrolled in clinical trials for treatments.
Because of the fraudulent trials, a group is now filing suit against Duke University: Seeking
compensatory and punitive damages in the case, alleging that Duke tried to cover up questions
about the research and performed unnecessary chemotherapy on people in hopes of patenting
and spinning off a cancer-screening test.
Not only is Dr. Pottis research misconduct causing extensive financial damags, but it also may
have instigated harmful treatment of patients across the country. This is the type of case where
the cost of misconduct cannot be simply measured by lost jobs, slowed research or even
financial losses. The potential loss of life and damage to health that came out of this incident
underscores the true damage caused by Pottis fraud.
Although Dr. Potti was just an individual researcher, Duke has been forced into a position
where it needs to take full responsibility for his actions. Duke will likely try to recoup their
image by ensuring the public that they are doing everything possible to repair the damages
caused by the incident; and ensuring an incident like this will never occur again.
In the majority of misconduct cases, it is the individuals who are closest to the incident that
face the highest level of impact. However, every so often, a major case of misconduct comes
along that causes widespread damage.
Citations
Chan, Amanda. "Did Anil Potti, Former Duke Cancer Researcher, Conduct Research Fraud?" The
Huffington Post. February 13th, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/13/anil-potti-
duke-cancer-fraud-university-research_n_1273264.html
Pelley, Scott. "Deception at Duke" CBS News. February 12th,
2012. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57376073/deception-at-duke/
Oransky, Ivan. "The Anil Potti retraction record so far" Retraction Watch. February 14th,
2012.http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/the-anil-potti-retraction-record-so-
far/
Edit: 3/01/12 Anil Potti case still under investigation. Question mark added to title.

RETRIEVED FROM: http://www.ithenticate.com/plagiarism-detection-blog/bid/78874/Biggest-
Offender-of-Medical-Research-Misconduct-in-History