As we’ve previously reported, German anesthesiologist Joachim Boldt has been under investigation for apparent misdeeds — including lack of proper informed consent and possible data fabrication — that led to the retraction earlier this year of an article in Anesthesia & Analgesia. We’ve just learned that Boldt also has drawn scrutiny from German prosecutors for his role in a clinical trial earlier in the decade that led to the death of one patient and the near-death of another.
According to an article in the Weinheimer Nachrichten, that incident occurred when Boldt was at the University Hospital Giessen. Officials there told us there was an investigation into the matter but declined to comment further.
Here’s Google’s translation of the Weinheimer Nachrichten piece:
Doctors’ rooms searched Ludwigshafen. In connection with an obviously fake drugs test at the Hospital of Ludwigshafen, the private residence of former chief physician anesthesia Professor Joachim Boldt and his former hospital rooms were searched, yesterday said the Chief prosecutor Lothar Liebig. The prosecution Frankenthal determined in this case on suspicion of violating the drug laws.
It also examines earlier allegations against the 57-year-old, against whom the prosecution had established six years ago, casting suspicion of causing death. Boldt was with ten doctors at the University Hospital Giessen been accused of having carried out on 45 patients without their knowledge a drug trial in cardiac surgery. Here, a patient is bleeding to death and another had just been rescued yet, said senior prosecutor Reinhard Hübner.
A physician had made a complaint against Boldt, which was set to “lack of evidence. ” Documents for the study were not found.
We’re trying to get in touch with Hübner about the case and will update this post after we speak with him.