Category: ori investigations

Alleged faked heart tests “might affect inclusion of data” in study led by UCSF

Parag Patel with Girl Scouts, Kenya, via FICCS
Parag Patel with Girl Scouts, Kenya, via FICCS

We have an update on the case of Parag Patel, the Park Ridge, Illinois cardiologist whom the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) said “engaged in research misconduct by directing or intimidating fellows and others to influence” test results so that patients would be eligible for a clinical trial.

A spokesperson for the clinical trial’s sponsor, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), tells us: Continue reading Alleged faked heart tests “might affect inclusion of data” in study led by UCSF

Researcher intimidated trainees into faking heart test results: ORI

Parag Patel with Girl Scouts, Kenya, via FICCS
Parag Patel with Girl Scouts, Kenya, via FICCS

A cardiology researcher in Illinois coerced trainees to fake the results of a heart test so that patients would qualify to enter a clinical trial, according to a new finding by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

Here’s an excerpt from the ORI’s notice about Parag V. Patel, of Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, in Park Ridge, Illinois: Continue reading Researcher intimidated trainees into faking heart test results: ORI

In sharp resignation letter, former ORI director Wright criticizes bureaucracy, dysfunction

David Wright, via ORI
David Wright, via ORI

Last week, we reported that David Wright had resigned as director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). At the time, we noted we were short on details, but  Science has obtained Wright’s resignation letter, which sheds a great deal of light on the move.

In his letter, according to Science, Wright wrote that: Continue reading In sharp resignation letter, former ORI director Wright criticizes bureaucracy, dysfunction

Senator “unsatisfied” with ORI’s response on recovery of tainted grant money

ori logoMarch has come in like a lion for the folks at the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

The agency’s director, David Wright, stepped down late last month for reasons that even now remain unclear. And in what seems to be an unrelated development, ORI has managed to draw the ire of Sen. Charles Grassley, who has been among the staunchest watchdogs over federal research integrity.

According to the Des Moines Register, the Iowa Republican

Continue reading Senator “unsatisfied” with ORI’s response on recovery of tainted grant money

Office of Research Integrity (ORI) head David Wright leaves agency

wright
David Wright (via ORI)

David Wright has left his post as director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), Retraction Watch has learned.

Although we’re short on details on the moment, we have confirmed that Wright’s last day at the agency was a week ago Thursday. Wright joined ORI as director in January 2012. According to his agency bio:

Continue reading Office of Research Integrity (ORI) head David Wright leaves agency

Should scientific fraud be treated as a crime?

ori logoSenator Charles Grassley of Iowa — known for his tough questions for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — wants to know why a former researcher at Iowa State University wasn’t prosecuted more vigorously after he was found to have deliberately spiked rabbit blood samples in a federally-funded HIV vaccine study.

As Tony Leys of the Des Moines Register reports: Continue reading Should scientific fraud be treated as a crime?

Faked HIV vaccine research presentation retracted

retrovirologyIn 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: Continue reading Faked HIV vaccine research presentation retracted

Former NIH scientist falsified images in hepatitis study: ORI

Baoyan Xu, via NIH
Baoyan Xu, via NIH

A former postdoc at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) committed misconduct in a study of hepatitis by falsely claiming that data from a single trial subject were actually from more than a dozen different people, the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has found.

The investigation was prompted by allegations made by readers of the paper. Baoyan Xu made what the ORI called “a limited admission” that “some better looking strips were repeatedly used as representatives for several times [sic].”

According to a report of the ORI’s findings to be published in the Federal Register tomorrow, the paper, “Hybrid DNA virus in Chinese patients with seronegative hepatitis discovered by deep sequencing, published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): Continue reading Former NIH scientist falsified images in hepatitis study: ORI

Former federal contractor faked data, says ORI

oriweb_logoThe Office of Research Integrity has found that Timothy Sheehy, formerly a scientist at a contractor for the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, committed misconduct in work paid for by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and a contract to his former company, SAIC-Frederick, Inc.

According to a notice in the Federal Register today, ORI found faked data in a 2010 paper, “Simultaneous Recovery of DNA and RNA from Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded Tissue and Application in Epidemiologic Studies,” that Sheehy and colleagues published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention: Continue reading Former federal contractor faked data, says ORI

ORI sanctions pathologist in Canada for bogus monkey data

haowang
Hao Wang

The Office of Research Integrity has concluded that Hao Wang, a Canadian pathologist, falsified data in a 2011 poster presentation supported by money from the National Institutes of Health.

For his part Wang, a former faculty member at Western University in Ontario (his website is still active but his email bounces back), has said there were undisclosed “extenuating circumstances” in the matter but that he could not afford to fight the case. Wang also seems to be making the “no harm, no foul” defense, as you’ll see from the notice: Continue reading ORI sanctions pathologist in Canada for bogus monkey data