Category: united states

CrossFit gym owner sues Ohio State, says fraudulent data led to $273 million in NIH grants

Mitch Potterf
Mitch Potterf
In an lawsuit unsealed yesterday, the owner of a CrossFit gym is suing Ohio State University (OSU) under the False Claims Act, claiming that researchers faked data in a university-based study involving his gym — and that OSU used the study to win $273 million in Federal grants.

The suit, originally filed in February in the U.S. District Court of Southern Ohio by Mitch Potterf, owner of a Columbus, Ohio CrossFit, alleges that a 2013 paper by OSU’s Steven Devor and colleagues falsely reported that nine subjects had dropped out of the study because of “overuse or injury.” The study, we should note, concluded that CrossFit is a useful form of exercise. It has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

As John Thomas, an attorney who handles False Claims Act cases, explained in a Retraction Watch guest post in March: Continue reading CrossFit gym owner sues Ohio State, says fraudulent data led to $273 million in NIH grants

Highly cited cancer researcher pulls review for “similar text and illustrations”

AbdomImaging_ak8The author of a 2006 review article published in Abdominal Imaging has retracted it because it hews too closely to previously published articles.

The review described the latest imaging techniques used in cancer, focusing on genitourinary conditions.

Here’s the full text of the retraction notice for “New Horizons in Genitourinary Oncologic Imaging”:

Continue reading Highly cited cancer researcher pulls review for “similar text and illustrations”

So you want to be a whistleblower? Part II

john thomas
John R. Thomas

This is the second article in a series by John R. Thomas, Jr., a lawyer at Gentry Locke [Editor’s note, 3/26/19: He has since moved to Haley, Hafemann, Magee and Thomas] who represents whistleblowers in a variety of False Claims Act cases. In this installment, he writes about how whistleblowers can tell if they have a viable FCA case.

In my first article, I briefly outlined the role that the False Claims Act (FCA) can play in promoting scientific integrity and safeguarding public grant funding. This article will answer a more substantive and practical question that a potential whistleblower must consider: What constitutes a viable FCA case? Continue reading So you want to be a whistleblower? Part II

Authors retract leptin paper due to “fabricated data”

CellPress_ak2The authors of a study on the effects of the hormone leptin on the liver have retracted it from Cell Metabolism, almost four months after the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) determined it contained faked data, courtesy of its first author.

However, the authors say that the paper’s conclusions remain valid, and are supported by new experiments and additional research by outside groups.

Here’s more from the retraction notice: Continue reading Authors retract leptin paper due to “fabricated data”

“Unreliable” data suffocates third paper for Duke pulmonary team

ajrcmbOnce again, a team of Duke University scientists has retracted a paper, this time due to “unreliable” figure data.

With co-authors at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Duke team has withdrawn a paper from the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology after concern about data in three figures led them to repeat one of their main experiments. They subsequently found “no evidence” supporting their previous conclusion.

By our count, it is the third retraction from a team that includes William Foster, a pulmonary researcher at the Duke Medical Center. The Duke team retracted a paper in 2013 on a related topic—the effect of early life ozone exposure on airways—from the Journal of Applied Physiology when it was discovered that, familiarly, data in a figure were “unreliable”. Recently, they also retracted a PNAS paper on asthma treatment earlier this month, due to missing primary data and mismatched data from two sources.

Continue reading “Unreliable” data suffocates third paper for Duke pulmonary team

Malpractice case against Duke, Anil Potti settled

pottiA lawsuit filed in October 2011 against Duke University and Anil Potti, who has retracted 11 papers and corrected a number of others amidst investigation into his work, has been settled, Retraction Watch has learned.

Potti resigned from Duke in 2010 following questions about his work, and revelations that he had lied on grant applications about being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. He now works at a cancer center in North Dakota.

The lawsuit was filed by subjects in clinical trials based on Potti’s work. Plaintiff’s attorney Thomas W. Henson, who confirmed the settlement, tells Retraction Watch: Continue reading Malpractice case against Duke, Anil Potti settled

NIH neuroscientist loses second paper, again the result of first author misconduct

Stanley Rapoport. Source: NIH
Stanley Rapoport. Source: NIH

Stanley Rapoport, a neuroscientist in the National Institute on Aging, isn’t having a lot of luck with his first authors. One committed misconduct and cost him a paper in the journal Age last year, and now he’s lost another paper with a different first author, but for the exact same reason.

The latest paper, in Neurochemical Research, examined whether chronic doses of aspirin reduce brain inflammation. It has been cited 14 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s more from the note: Continue reading NIH neuroscientist loses second paper, again the result of first author misconduct

Misconduct earns researcher a five-year ban on federal funding

ori logoA University of Minnesota former chemistry graduate student has been banned from receiving federal funding for five years based on “a preponderance of the evidence that the Respondent intentionally and knowingly engaged in research misconduct.”

Venkata J. Reddy appears to have manipulated findings in one R01 grant application. In recent years, bans are less common than having research supervised. What’s also unusual is that the sanction appeared to have begun two years ago, in 2013, because it lifts August 26, 2018. The report, which is scheduled to published tomorrow in the Federal Register, says the debarment has a “joint jurisdiction,” suggesting another agency may be involved. [See first update at end of post.]

According to the ORI notice, Reddy “intentionally and knowingly engaged in research misconduct by falsifying and/or fabricating data that was provided to his mentor” for an R01 application to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). More specifically: Continue reading Misconduct earns researcher a five-year ban on federal funding

Former Florida ob-gyn prof notches eighth retraction

University of Florida
University of Florida

Nasser Chegini, the former University of Florida professor currently under investigation by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), has now had eight papers retracted.

The eighth paper, in the journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, is about the effect of a compound used during fertility treatments on Smads, signaling molecules that carry messages from TGF-beta receptors to the nucleus. It’s being retracted disappeared due to the discovery of data that “have been fabricated or falsified by the last author” — namely, Chegini.

Here’s more from the notice for “Gonadotropin releasing hormone analogue (GnRHa) alters the expression and activation of Smad in human endometrial epithelial and stromal cells:” Continue reading Former Florida ob-gyn prof notches eighth retraction

Trove of VA reports reveals research misconduct, medical malpractice

va logoLast week, the Veteran Affairs Office of Inspector General released eight years of reports investigating allegations of nefarious behavior at VA hospitals and institutions around the country, ranging from mistreating a patient in Florida, misspending grant money in New York, and conducting unauthorized research in Iowa.

In one report, Continue reading Trove of VA reports reveals research misconduct, medical malpractice