Retraction Overexpression
09.24.10 by Michelle Kienholz
The big news during these Nobel-watching weeks is that Nobel Laureate Linda Buck retracted her 2006 Science paper with Zhihua Zou, who, as also reported in the NYT, did not agree with the retraction of this paper or a 2005 PNAS article but did sign off on a Nature 2008 retraction. Dr. Buck notes the disagreement in her Science retraction:
In the Report “Combinatorial Effects of Odorant Mixes in Olfactory Cortex” (1), we described subcellular patterns of Arc (arg3.1) mRNA expression in anterior piriform cortex neurons after mice had been exposed to odorants. We reported that some cortical neurons express Arc in response to a mix of two odorants but not either odorant alone. My laboratory has been unable to reproduce this finding. I am therefore retracting the Report. I sincerely apologize for any confusion that its publication may have caused. Zhihua Zou declined to sign this Retraction.
Separately, Science Insider and then Science News reported four retractions from the lab of therapy researcher Savio Woo at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. RetractionWatch, which originally reported on these, um, retractions, received a statement from Mount Sinai spokesman Ian Micheals indicating Dr. Woo had not been charged with misconduct but that the case (postdocs) was under investigation in cooperation with ORI. RetractionWatch yesterday reported on two additional retractions. RetractionWatch has it all nicely laid out … no need to replicate everything here … other than to wonder how many cases remain to be uncovered at significant cost in others’ time, $, and careers pursuing pathways of fabricated science.
Findings of Research Misconduct
09.1.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Notice is hereby given that ORI and the Assistant Secretary for Health have taken final action in the following case:
Based on the report of an investigation conducted by the Washington State University and additional analysis by ORI in its oversight review, the US PHS found that Hung-Shu Chang, PhD, former postdoctoral fellow, WSU, engaged in research misconduct in research supported by R01ES012974.
PHS found that the Respondent engaged in scientific (42 CFR 50.102) and research misconduct by fabricating and falsifying data in Figure 3 of a paper published in Endocrinology. Specifically, PHS found that:
Respondent, by not conducting any of the claimed bisulfite sequencing, fabricated the methylation status of CpG sites in 8 candidate genes identified in both Figures 3 and 4 as No. 11, No. 12, No. 13, No. 14, 15, No. 22, No. 26, No. 31, and No. 19, to support the hypothesis that the environmental compound, vinclozolin, induces a permanent alteration in the epigenetic reprogramming of the germline that promotes transgenerational disease states.
Respondent, by conducting only a small fraction of the claimed bisulfite sequencing, and falsifying the results obtained, falsified the methylation status of CpG sites in eight additional candidate genes, identified in Figures 3 and 4 as No. 2, 3, 24, No. 5, 6, 9, No. 8, No. 16, No. 17, 18, No. 27, 28, No. 29, and No. 33.
Dr. Chang has voluntarily agreed, for a period of 3 years, beginning on July 21, 2010:
(1) To exclude himself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS, including but not limited to service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant;
(2) that any institution that submits an application for PHS support for a research project on which the Respondent’s participation is proposed or that uses him in any capacity on PHS-support research, or that submits a report of PHS-funded research in which the Respondent is involved, must concurrently submit a plan for supervision of the Respondent’s duties to the funding agency for approval. The supervisory plan must be designed to ensure the scientific integrity of the Respondent’s research contribution while applying for or conducting PHS-supported research. Respondent agrees to ensure that a copy of the supervisory plan is submitted to ORI by the institution for ORI approval. Respondent agrees not to participate in any PHS-supported research until such a supervisory plan is submitted to ORI.
Findings of Scientific Misconduct
08.30.10 by Michelle Kienholz
As foreshadowed by a news piece and letter in Science previously reported here … note the passage of time since this case came to light as well …
Notice is hereby given that ORI and the Assistant Secretary for Health have taken final action in the following case:
Based on the report of an investigation conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and additional analysis conducted by ORI in its oversight review, the US PHS found that Elizabeth Goodwin, PhD, former associate professor of genetics and medical genetics engaged in scientific misconduct while her research was supported by grants R01GM051836 and R01GM073183.
PHS found that in grant application 2R01GM051836-13, Respondent knowingly and intentionally:
- Falsified Figures 5A and 5B by reusing figures from two of her earlier published papers and falsely labeling them to claim results that had not been achieved in her laboratory.
- Falsified Figure 7B by reusing a figure from one of her published papers and both relabeling it to claim she had detected the STAR-2 protein rather than the TRA-l protein actually detected and modifying the image in the application to disguise its origin.
- Falsified Figure 8C by using a figure produced by one of her students and relabeled it to show that RNAi treatment of C. elegans led to increased expression of the TRA-2 protein when this result had not been obtained by the student.
- Falsified the table on Page 20 of the application showing phenotypic frequencies of worms expressing star-2 (ok483) mutants by significantly overstating the level of aberrant phenotypes and fabricating certain categories of phenotypes not seen by the student conducting the research.
PHS finds that in grant application 1R01GM073183-01, Dr. Goodwin knowingly and intentionally:
- Falsified Figure 5 because she used the same two lanes in both Figure 5 and Figure 7, although they were flipped horizontally in one of the figures to disguise their reuse. In Figure 7, the lanes illustrated an effect on laf-1 during developmental stages of C. elegans, and in Figure 5, the same lanes purportedly illustrated an effect on laf-1 noncoding RNA. A witness testified that the result in Figure 5 had not been observed, while that in Figure 7 had, indicating that the claims for Figure 5 were falsified.
- Falsified Figure 8 by reusing photographs prepared by a student that identified the location of rRas-l expression in adult worms and claiming instead that the images illustrated the location of laf-1 mRNA. The images had been enlarged and cropped to disguise their location.
Dr. Goodwin has voluntarily agreed, for a period of 3 years, beginning on July 22, 2010:
-
(1) To exclude herself from any contracting or subcontracting with any agency of the U.S. Government and from eligibility for, or involvement in, nonprocurement programs of the U.S. Government referred to as “covered transactions’ pursuant to the HHS Implementation of OMB Guidelines to Agencies on Governmentwide Debarment and Suspension at 2 CFR 376, et seq.; and
(2) To exclude herself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS, including but not limited to service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant.
Fabrication of “Errors” and Mentoring Misconduct
08.19.10 by Michelle Kienholz
The Chronicle of Higher Education today reports on an internal Harvard document (a statement by a former research assistant given in 2007) as part of the obscure Marc Hauser case that describes
how research assistants became convinced that the professor was reporting bogus data and how he aggressively pushed back against those who questioned his findings or asked for verification.
The former research assistant described the motivation for coming forward as a concern to “make it clear that it was solely Mr. Hauser who was responsible for the problems he observed … [and to] help other researchers make sense of the allegations.”
So what happened?
The experiment tested the ability of rhesus monkeys to recognize sound patterns. … If a monkey looked at the speaker, this was taken as an indication that a difference was noticed. … the experiment in question was coded by Mr. Hauser and a research assistant in his laboratory. … [the research assistant] found that the monkeys didn’t seem to notice the change in pattern. … [Hauser] found that the monkeys did notice the change in pattern—and, according to his numbers, the results were statistically significant.”
Okay – big discrepancy as to who saw what and how they interpreted what they saw. Solution? Have a third researcher analyze the tapes, which is what a research assistant assigned to analyze the two sets of data (Hauser’s and the RA who did not see the monkeys recognize any changes) suggested. A graduate student agreed. Hauser did not.
“I don’t feel comfortable analyzing results/publishing data with that kind of skew until we can verify that with a third coder,” [wrote the research assistant assigned to analyze the data] …
“i am getting a bit pissed here,” Mr. Hauser wrote in an e-mail to one research assistant. “there were no inconsistencies! let me repeat what happened. i coded everything. then [a research assistant] coded all the trials highlighted in yellow. we only had one trial that didn’t agree. i then mistakenly told [another research assistant] to look at column B when he should have looked at column D. … we need to resolve this because i am not sure why we are going in circles.”
Given earlier studies whose findings were questioned when independent scientists reviewed Hauser’s videotapes, this is not surprising. The research assistant and graduate student took the initiative to get to the bottom of the discrepancies themselves:
The research assistant who analyzed the data and the graduate student decided to review the tapes themselves, without Mr. Hauser’s permission, the document says. They each coded the results independently. Their findings concurred with the conclusion that the experiment had failed: The monkeys didn’t appear to react to the change in patterns.
They then reviewed Mr. Hauser’s coding and, according to the research assistant’s statement, discovered that what he had written down bore little relation to what they had actually observed on the videotapes. He would, for instance, mark that a monkey had turned its head when the monkey didn’t so much as flinch. It wasn’t simply a case of differing interpretations, they believed: His data were just completely wrong.
So, complete fabrication in this experiment. Perhaps much of Hauser’s career.
As word of the problem with the experiment spread, several other lab members revealed they had had similar run-ins with Mr. Hauser, the former research assistant says. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. There was, several researchers in the lab believed, a pattern in which Mr. Hauser reported false data and then insisted that it be used.
Recall, too, that the original Globe report noted that “Colleagues of Hauser’s at Harvard and other universities have been aware for some time that questions had been raised about some of his research …”
After three years of investigating, Harvard took steps to have the scientific record corrected (retractions) but did not acknowledge, despite apparently knowing, the type of misconduct that led to these errors or what the errors were, leaving this to ORI – which will take additional time, perhaps years, to complete and report its investigation.
In the meantime, perhaps the scientific community can begin to sort out how to reassess the state of the field, and at least Hauser won’t be engaging in his special sort of mentorship, as described by the whistle-blowing research assistant: “The most disconcerting part of the whole experience to me was the feeling that Marc was using his position of authority to force us to accept sloppy (at best) science.”
More Retractions, More Misconduct
08.10.10 by Michelle Kienholz
this time at Harvard, which has put Marc Hauser on leave for “misconduct” following 3 years of investigation (Duke watchers take note). At least one and possibly a passel of papers are likely to be retracted, but no one is quite sure why.
According to the Boston Globe, the editor of one of the journals does not know the nature of the misconduct:
The editor of Cognition, Gerry Altmann, said in an interview that he had not been told what specific errors had been made in the paper, which is unusual.
[from the retraction: “An internal examination at Harvard University . . . found that the data do not support the reported findings. We therefore are retracting this article." and "MH accepts responsibility for the error."]
Neither does at least one co-author:
Gary Marcus, a psychology professor at New York University and one of the co-authors of the paper, said he drafted the introduction and conclusions of the paper, based on data that Hauser collected and analyzed. … “I never actually saw the raw data, just his summaries, so I can’t speak to the exact nature of what went wrong.’’
However, everyone seems to have been “troubled”:
Colleagues of Hauser’s at Harvard and other universities have been aware for some time that questions had been raised about some of his research, and they say they are troubled by the investigation and forthcoming retraction in Cognition.
Two other papers co-authored by Hauser, one in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B and one in Science, are also under review.
The work had been funded by the NIH, the NSF, and Harvard’s Mind, Brain, and Behavior program, so perhaps a future ORI report will be more enlightening.
The Globe article goes on to summarize a prior incident:
In 1995, he was the lead author of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that looked at whether cotton-top tamarins are able to recognize themselves in a mirror. Self-recognition was something that set humans and other primates, such as chimpanzees and orangutans, apart from other animals, and no one had shown that monkeys had this ability.
Gordon G. Gallup Jr., a professor of psychology at State University of New York at Albany, questioned the results and requested videotapes that Hauser had made of the experiment.
“When I played the videotapes, there was not a thread of compelling evidence — scientific or otherwise — that any of the tamarins had learned to correctly decipher mirrored information about themselves,’’ Gallup said in an interview.
In 1997, he co-authored a critique of the original paper, and Hauser and a co-author responded with a defense of the work.
In 2001, in a study in the American Journal of Primatology, Hauser and colleagues reported that they had failed to replicate the results of the previous study. The original paper has never been retracted or corrected.
Well, now everyone will be watching to see what PNAS does.
A quote by Michael Tomasello toward the end of an article sums up why this (and other reports of misconduct) are important:
“If scientists can’t trust published papers, the whole process breaks down.’’
Author of the “Moral Mind”, Hauser is apparently currently working on another book entitled, “Evilicious: Explaining Our Evolved Taste for Being Bad.’’
Indeed.
Update: I just learned of even better blog coverage of this strange tale, including links to all the articles in question, with plenty of other items of interest to keep your eyeballs on that page.
Findings of Research Misconduct
07.28.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Notice is hereby given that ORI and the Assistant Secretary for Health have taken final action in the following case:
Based on the reports of an inquiry and an investigation conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and analysis conducted by the ORI Division of Investigative Oversight, ORI found that Gerardo L. Paez, PhD, former postdoctoral fellow, Section of Medical Genetics, UPenn School of Veterinary Medicine, engaged in research misconduct in research supported by R01EY06855 and R01EY13132.
ORI found that the Respondent engaged in research misconduct by falsifying and fabricating retinal gene profile data that he purportedly obtained from 3-week old normal dogs and dogs with X-linked progressive retinal atrophy in abstracts and poster presentations for the 2006 and 2007 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meetings and in an unsubmitted manuscript draft. The Respondent also falsely labeled data files in the UPenn bioinformatics core computer and submitted falsely identified files to his research mentors.
Dr. Paez has voluntarily agreed, for a period of 3 years, beginning on June 9, 2010:
(1) To exclude himself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS, including but not limited to service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant;
(2) that any institution that submits an application for PHS support for a research project on which the Respondent’s participation is proposed or that uses him in any capacity on PHS-supported research, or that submits a report of PHS-funded research in which he is involved, must concurrently submit a plan for supervision of his duties to the funding agency for approval; the supervisory plan must be designed to ensure the scientific integrity of his research contribution. A copy of the supervisory plan also must be submitted to ORI by the institution. Respondent agreed that he will not participate in any PHS-supported research until such a supervisory plan is submitted to ORI.
Duke is Capable of Acting Quickly on Misconduct …
07.19.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Update: On Sunday, Duke and other participating sites (again) halted the 3 clinical trials based on Potti’s earlier results. This morning, Rob commented on the lack of local media coverage of the Hellinga case but the quick reporting of Duke’s rapid action taken against Anil Potti:
Durham’s media has been absolutely silent on the Hellinga debacle. The did, however, take note of another pompous liar in the medical center ranks:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/07/17/585434/duke-scientist-placed-on-leave.html
Our friends at GenomeWeb have also alerted the scientific community to detective work by The Cancer Letter (also noted on their blog):
… one of Potti’s biographical sketches says he was a “Rhodes Scholar (Australia)” in 1995 and another says he held a “Research Fellowship at Queensland Research Institute, Australia (Mentor: Gordon McLaren)” at that time. “We don’t have any record that Anil Potti was a Rhodes scholar,” a Rhodes Trust spokesperson told The Cancer Letter. In addition, Rhodes says that its scholarships may only be used to study at the University of Oxford.
Furthermore, McLaren was “‘shocked,’ ‘saddened,’ and ‘flabbergasted’” to learn he was listed as Potti’s mentor in Australia, according to the newsletter. The Cancer Letter goes on to describe other inconsistencies on Potti’s résumé, including the year he graduated from medical school and an assertion that he was a National Merit Scholar.
According to The Cancer Letter, Potti claims to have worked under McLaren at the “Queensland Research Institute” (which does not exist). The Queensland Institute of Medical Research, which does exist, does not have any records of Potti having ever studied or existed there.
GenomeWeb also includes links to Potti’s 2006 Nature Medicine article, Genomic signatures to guide the use of chemotherapeutics, plus 2 corrigenda to correct errors in 2007 and 2008 (MD Anderson biostatisticians found the errors, as reported by Nature Medicine, which also noted Duke’s reluctance be entirely forthright about their outside review of 3 suspended clinical trials that were resumed this January).
According to the Durham News Observer:
“Duke is aware of the allegations raised in the article regarding Dr. Potti and has instituted a formal internal investigation,” Duke spokesman Douglas Stokke said Friday afternoon. “Dr. Potti has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.”
… On Friday, the American Cancer Society suspended payments to Potti’s grant pending its own investigation.
“We are profoundly concerned to learn that a Duke University researcher made claims about his credentials in applications to the American Cancer Society and others that may not be true,” said Otis W. Brawley, the American Cancer Society’s chief medical officer.
It isn’t clear whether a false biographical claim would put a federal research grant in jeopardy. NIH spokesman Don Ralbovsky would say only that “it is NIH policy to neither confirm nor deny that a review has been initiated or is under way.” [Potti is PI on 5R01CA131049-02 and 1R01CA136530-01A1]
… If he did falsify his biography, Potti may have committed a crime. The federal False Claims Act prohibits, among other things, falsifying applications in order to receive grant funding.
“It is most certainly unethical,” said Peg Vigiolto, UNC-Chapel Hill’s associate vice chancellor for research, speaking generally and not about Potti specifically. “And it would most certainly initiate all sorts of scientific integrity questions.”
Indeed.
As a side note, this issue of The Cancer Letter also covers Harold Varmus’ return to NCI, and his distinct lack of enthusiasm for megascience, giving preference to work done by individual scientists.
More Retractions, More Misconduct
05.19.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Nothing to say here except thanks to DrugMonkey for the heads-up on spotting another case of misconduct causing extensive havoc in the scientific community – this time, Suresh Radhakrishnan, PhD, formerly at the Mayo Clinic Dept of Immunology. No word on whatever formal misconduct investigation may be in progress, but quite a list of affected articles, and some brief insight via the authors’ note to PLoS ONE:
An investigation by the Mayo Clinic has determined that one of the researchers in Professor Pease’s laboratory at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Suresh Radhakrishnan, tampered with another investigator’s experiment with the intent to mislead toward the conclusion that the B7-DCXAb reagent has cell activating properties. Using blinded protocols, experiments were done to see if the results based on this reagent could be replicated. Specifically, the repeat experiments examined the activation of dendritic cells, activation of cytotoxic T cells, induction of tumor immunity, modulation of allergic responses, breaking tolerance in the RIP-OVA diabetes model, and the reprogramming of Th2 and T regulatory cells. In no case did these repeat studies reveal any evidence that the B7-DCXAb reagent had the previously reported activity. The authors of this paper therefore wish to retract this paper because of the inability to reproduce key aspects of the studies and hence the results in them cannot be considered reliable.
The note in PNAS gives the scope: “In the course of this re-examination, we were able to study all the antibodies used in the various phases of our work spanning the last 10 years. None of these antibodies appears to be active in any of our repeat assays. We do not believe something has happened recently to the reagent changing its potency.”
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Esteban Celis, and Larry R. Pease, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2005;102:11438–11443
Retraction: Radhakrishnan S, Cabrera R, et al. (2009) PLoS ONE 4(4): e5373
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Loc T. Nguyen, Bogoljub Ciric, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2003, 170: 1830–1838
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Koji Iijima, Takao Kobayashi, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2004, 173: 1360–1365.
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Loc T. Nguyen, Bogoljub Ciric, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2007, 178: 1426–1432.
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Karla R. Wiehagen, Vesna Pulko, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2007, 178: 3583–3592.
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Rosalyn Cabrera, Erin L. Schenk, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2008, 181: 3137–3147.
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Laura N. Arneson, Jadee L. Upshaw, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2008, 181: 7863–7872.
He has other publications and patents that may have some issues as well. Stay tuned.
Press Reports on Another UW Misconduct Case
05.17.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Update: A King County Superior Court Judge rejected Aprikyan’s request for a temporary injunction to stop the university from firing him. A trial on the case has been set for November.
Hot on the heels of one sensational misconduct case at U Wash, details have been made public about another since the research assistant professor (and UW table tennis coach) at the heart of the investigation, Andrew Aprikyan, has sued in court to save his job.
The Seattle Times reports on “some eye-opening revelations in the court documents — including Aprikyan’s own account that a technician working with him at one point wrote research notes on ‘approximately 30 paper towels,’ and the notes were never transcribed.” Clearly someone missed the seminar on maintaining a good lab notebook.
The case has dragged on 7 years, during which time Aprikyan has continued to publish, secure grant funding, and present his results. This year, UW President Mark Emmert intervened to say Aprikyan should be fired for academic misconduct.
But getting back to that long investigation (Duke watchers take note):
In 2003, when the journal “Blood” posted an Aprikyan paper on its website, another researcher noticed that something looked wrong: An image of a cell in one panel appeared to have been rotated 90 degrees and relabeled in another panel.
Aprikyan later withdrew the paper, which other researchers contributed to, noting that “errors in some of the digital images in the manuscript are under investigation.”
“We … extend our deepest apologies to the scientific community,” Aprikyan wrote on the “Blood” website.
In court papers, Aprikyan said it was a rival faculty member who turned him in after “I had refused to work with him on a research project.”
The UW appointed a committee, composed of three scientists, to investigate Aprikyan’s work. Under UW rules, such investigations are supposed to take 90 days. But the committee got at least 16 extensions as the investigation dragged on. It worked for three years, eventually issuing a report of more than 450 pages.
It took another year for Paul Ramsey, dean of the UW School of Medicine, to review the reports and issue his own findings. Ramsey concluded that Aprikyan had falsified seven figures and tables in two research papers, and that his actions amounted to academic misconduct.
Then things took a turn. Ramsey and Provost Phyllis Wise asked a faculty panel — which included professors of English, Scandinavian studies and several other disciplines — to decide whether Aprikyan should be fired. Aprikyan, in turn, asked the panel to reconsider the entire case against him.
Over the objections of UW administrators, a law professor decided the faculty panel could reconsider the case. Two years later, the panel concluded, in a 70-page report, that while there was plenty of evidence of sloppy methods and erroneous results, there was no evidence Aprikyan had deliberately falsified his work.
Earlier this year, Emmert made his own ruling: The second panel had no authority to review the first committee’s findings. Emmert wrote that he, therefore, accepted those initial findings — that Aprikyan had committed scientific misconduct — and concluded the researcher should be fired.
Whoa … 3 scientists devoted 3 years to preparing a 450-p report about 7 falsified figures & tables in 2 papers?
Wonder what will be left for ORI to say when they finally issue their report.
Findings of Misconduct in Science
05.10.10 by Michelle Kienholz
And then some …
“Specifically, ORI made 15 findings of misconduct in science based on evidence that Dr. Brodie knowingly and intentionally fabricated and falsified data reported in 9 PHS grant applications and progress reports and several published papers, manuscripts, and PowerPoint presentations.”
Oof. Note the multiple mechanisms (3 P01s, 4 R01s, 1 U01, and 1 R01 converted to a U01) and funding institutes (NICHD, NIAID, NIDCR, NHLBHI). And Dr. Brodie, a research assistant professor (i.e., non-tenure track) fought them every step of the way it seems. Without further ado …
Notice is hereby given that on March 18, 2010, the DHHS Debarring Official, on behalf of the Secretary of HHS, issued a final notice of debarment based on the misconduct in science findings of the ORI in the following case:
Based on the findings in an investigation report by the University of Washington and additional analysis conducted by ORI in its oversight review, ORI found that Scott J. Brodie, DVM, PhD, former Research Assistant Professor, Department of Laboratory Medicine, and Director of the UW Retrovirology Pathogenesis Laboratory, committed misconduct in science (scientific misconduct) in research supported by or reported in the following US PHS grant applications:
1 P01HD40540
5 P01HD40540
1 P01AI057005
1 R01DE014149
2 U01AI41535
1 R01HL072631
1 R01(U01)AI054334
1 R01DE014827
1 R01 AI051954The 15 findings [of misconduct in science] are as follows:
1. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified a figure that was presented in manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Experimental Medicine and the Journal of Virology and in several PowerPoint presentations that purported to represent rectal mucosal leukocytes in some instances and lymph nodes in other instances.
2. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified portions of a three-paneled figure included in several manuscript submissions, PowerPoint presentations, and grant applications.
3. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified a figure included as Figure 1N in American Journal of Pathology 54:1453-1464, 1999, three NIH grant applications, and several PowerPoint presentations.
4. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified a figure that was published as an insert within Figure 1K in American Journal of Pathology 54:1453, 1999 and included the figure in a number of NIH grant applications.
5. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified a figure representing a panel of four green fluorescent cells and included it as a figure in several grant applications claiming that each cell had been subjected to different treatments when three of the cells came from a single image.
6. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified an image included as Figure 5A in a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Investigations 105:1407, 2000 and submitted to various journals and included in different grant applications.
7. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified a figure appearing as Figure 3.III.A, inset, in a manuscript submitted to Science entitled “A persistent reservoir of HIV-1 in pulmonary macrophages’ and as figures in various grant applications and PowerPoint presentations.
8. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified multiple versions of a figure depicting green and red fluorescent cells used as Figures 3.III.H and I in a manuscript submitted to Science, as Figures 6C and 6D of grant application 1 R01 DE14827-01, as Figures C.2.1 1H and C.2.11I of grant application 1 R01 HL072631-01, and in PowerPoint presentations.
9. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified a figure, labeled as Figure 9E in grant application 1 R01 DE014827-01 and in various other grant applications and PowerPoint presentations.
10. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified the bottom half of Figure C.2.5 of grant application 1 R01 HL072631-01 by using the same image twice, labeling it once as being treated for 2 hours with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and the second as being treated for 12 hours with LPS. Respondent also used a second image twice, labeling it once as “no LPS’ and the second time as “24 hours with LPS.’
11. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified a figure that purports to represent viral decay in rectal mucosa and included the figure as a slide in two PowerPoint presentations and three NIH grant applications.
12. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified: (a) A histopathology figure that was described in a paper published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases 83:1466, 2001, as inguinal lymph nodes from an untreated AIDS patient using in situ PCR to show the presence of HIV-1 cells when it was actually from a tissue expressing the neomycin marker; (b) the gel images resembling Figures 2A and C, which Respondent claimed to be based on lymph node cells, although he reported the gel images elsewhere to represent results from rectal tissue; and (c) various versions of these blots that Respondent reported elsewhere and labeled differently with respect to the copy numbers detected and as detecting DNA in some instance and RNA in others.
13. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified Figures 2DI and 2DII included in a paper published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology 68:351-359, 2000.
14. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified Figure 4, Panels A and B, in grant application 1 R01 DE014827-01 by manipulating the source images.
15. Respondent knowingly and intentionally falsified a number of figures and made false statements in the text of grant application 1 R01 AI051954-01 submitted jointly with a colleague by relabeling figures based on research carried out with HIV-1 or HIV-2 and identifying the figures and text as research conducted with ovine lentivirus (OvLV).
ORI issued a charge letter enumerating the above findings of misconduct in science and proposing HHS administrative actions. Dr. Brodie subsequently requested a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) of the Departmental Appeals Board to dispute these findings. In January 2009, the ALJ issued a ruling holding that there were no triable issues challenging ORI’s findings that there were materially false statements, images, and other data in the relevant publications, presentations, and grant applications. However, the ALJ held that Dr. Brodie raised triable issues about his intent to commit scientific misconduct and the reasonableness of the proposed debarment of 7 years.
On January 12, 2010, the ALJ issued a recommended decision to the HHS Assistant Secretary for Health granting summary disposition to ORI. The ALJ also stated that Dr. Brodie committed scientific misconduct on multiple occasions and that its extent amply justified debarment for a period of 7 years.
On February 1, 2010, Dr. Brodie submitted a letter to the HHS Debarring Official with attachments to request that the ALJ’s recommended decision be rejected as a whole. On February 26, 2010, Dr. Brodie submitted a letter requesting the opportunity to meet with the HHS Debarring Official to orally present the reasons supporting his request that the ALJ’s recommended decision be rejected. However, the HHS Debarring Official determined that Dr. Brodie had been afforded an opportunity to contest ORI’s findings of scientific misconduct … Given the findings of facts in this case, the HHS Debarring Official determined that the issues in his presentation in opposition to the ALJ’s recommended decision did not raise a genuine dispute over facts material to the recommended debarment.
Accordingly, the HHS Debarring Official also denied Dr. Brodie’s request to make an oral presentation and issued a notice of debarment to begin on March 18, 2010, and end on March 17, 2017.
On March 23, 2010, Dr. Brodie submitted a letter requesting a postponement of the effective date of the debarment. This request was denied by the Debarring Official on April 6, 2010.
Thus, the misconduct in science findings set forth above became effective, and the following administrative actions have been implemented for a period of 7 years, beginning on March 18, 2010.
I wonder if ORI began to think 7 years wasn’t enough …
