In December, we reported on the case of Dong-Pyou Han, who was found by the Office of Research Integrity to have spiked rabbit blood samples to make it look as though a vaccine for HIV was working.
At the time, Han’s former institution, Iowa State, told us that “one oral presentation and some abstracts will be removed from the web.”
One of those retractions has occurred, in Retrovirology, of “Eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1 that target gp41 MPER.” Here’s the notice:
This poster presentation (Han et al, 2012) has been retracted on request of the author Michael W Cho. The Office of Research Integrity at the US DHHS has determined that the first author Dong-Pyou Han committed research misconduct and the poster was prepared based on falsified data (The Office of Research Integrity, 2013).
The presentation, which was published in September 2012, has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
For details about the case and investigation, read Tony Leys’ stories in the Des Moines Register, based on hundreds of pages of documents released to the paper.
Hat tip: Rolf Degen
From the linked newspaper article: “Cho had brought Han with him when ISU recruited the team away from Case Western Reserve University in 2008. ISU officials spent several months tracking down the culprit, the documents show.” So, this Han guy was in the lab of Cho for AT LEAST 5 years (since 2008), and probably 5 before that. And this is the first cheating? I think there is a lot of stuff yet to come out in this one.
Sadly enough, this case is grist to the mill for the anti vaccine movement. Here is a German anti vaccine site that uses the misconduct of Dong-Pyou Han to discredit the whole vaccination enterprise:
http://info.kopp-verlag.de/medizin-und-gesundheit/natuerliches-heilen/mike-adams/schon-wieder-ein-forscher-ertappt-wissenschaftlicher-schwindel-bei-der-impfstoffindustrie.html;jsessionid=D49456C9CB6EF145EA739585C8389BD3
Precisely why journals, universities and funders MUST have a NO tolerance policy for fake data.
If they do not act usually for fear of lawsuits we (that’s the BIG WE) are literally doomed!