Anatomy of a scientific fraud

Just drop everything, and read the NYTimes story (mixed with some analysis) about Eric Poehlman’s fraud which made him “only the second scientist in the United States to face criminal prosecution for falsifying research data.” Here’s the opening paragraph:

On a rainy afternoon in June, Eric Poehlman stood before a federal judge in the United States [...]

Depression, migraines and conflicts of interest

July 13:

The latest incident, disclosed in letters to the editor and a correction in Wednesday’s journal, involves a study showing that pregnant women who stop taking antidepressants risk slipping back into depression.

Most of the 13 authors have financial ties to drug companies including antidepressant makers, but only two of them revealed their ties when the [...]

Hwang Woo Suk admits wrongdoing

Finally! Here’s the Guardian:

For a paper in the journal Science, Hwang said he had told researchers to make it look as if they were basing their results on 11 cloned embryonic stem cell lines, rather than the two lines he believed they had.

Here’s the Telegraph:

“I admit to the suspicion of fabrication,” he told prosecutors, who [...]

Scientific misconduct can land you in jail!

From this story about an academic researcher being sent to jail for using fabricated and falsified data in grant applications:

[Former University of Vermont professor of medicine Eric Poehlman] was accused of falsifying research in applications and papers for several projects, including the effect of menopause on women’s metabolism, the impact of aging, the study of [...]

The Ward Churchill case

Jon Wiener, professor of history at the University of California at Irvine, recounts the story of the investigation by a faculty committee into allegations of academic misconduct by Ward Churchill, “Native American activist and professor of ethnic studies at [the University of Colorado at Boulder]“. It appears to be a balanced story, and there are [...]

Papers retracted by chemistry professor: an update

Remember this post from three months ago? Now, we have an update by Kenneth Chang in the NYTimes. Prof. Dalibor Sames, the Columbia University professor of chemistry, who retracted two papers in March has now retracted four more papers. These papers were published in 2002 and 2003, and Sames was the lead author in all [...]

Hwang says he didn’t fake it, his underlings did

The disgraced scientist, Hwang Woo Suk, firmly believed his lab’s purported stem cell breakthroughs were genuine until confronted last year with evidence that they were faked, his lawyer insisted Tuesday at the start of Hwang’s trial for fraud. …

The opening comments by Hwang’s lawyer, Park Jong Rok, appeared to stem from Hwang’s long-running strategy of [...]

Faked research on computer chip design

Here is the NYTimes story that broke the news. The quote below is from the follow-up story:

[A] top computer scientist, Chen Jin, … became a national hero in 2003 when he said he had created one of China’s first digital signal processing computer chips, sophisticated microchips that can process digitized data for mobile phones, cameras [...]

It’s financial impropriety now

The aftermath of Hwang Woo Suk scandal has taken yet another bizarre turn. He has now been accused of financial impropriety too!
Prosecutors on Friday indicted a disgraced cloning scientist on embezzlement and bioethics law violations linked to faked stem cell research, officials said.
Government auditors said in February that it was unclear how he had spent [...]

Is the peer review system broken?

The New York Times ran an article yesterday with the following opening:

Recent disclosures of fraudulent or flawed studies in medical and scientific journals have called into question as never before the merits of their peer-review system.
The system is based on journals inviting independent experts to critique submitted manuscripts. The stated aim is to weed [...]

Is the peer review system broken?

The New York Times ran an article yesterday with the following opening:

Recent disclosures of fraudulent or flawed studies in medical and scientific journals have called into question as never before the merits of their peer-review system.
The system is based on journals inviting independent experts to critique submitted manuscripts. The stated aim is to weed [...]

Another interesting case

In this NYTimes story, Kenneth Chang reports on a paper being withdrawn by the leader of the group that did the experiments:

A Columbia University chemistry professor has retracted two papers and part of a third published in a leading journal after experiments performed by a graduate student could not be reproduced.
The senior author of [...]

“Research misbehaviour”

Nicholas Wade has been doing quite a bit of follow-up reporting (see the end of the post for links) on the Hwang Woo Suk scandal (aka human cloning scandal) and its aftermath . One part of the puzzle that hasn’t got too much of attention is the role of Gerald Schatten, the University of Pittsburgh [...]

More on the Hwang Woo Suk scandal

Just a quick set of links:

New York Times’ Gina Kolata has a report about the process by which a paper in Science is retracted.

Via slashdot, we learn of this crazy defence by Hwang Woo Suk; he has the temerity to talk about a long-planned conspiracy.

The most poignant reaction is by Elia Diodati (link via Tangled [...]

It was 11, it then became 2, and …

… now, it is one big Zero. Zilch. Zippo.

Thus progresses the shameful saga of the fraud perpetrated by Hwang Woo Suk. Read about it in this report byChoe Sang-Hun in the New York Times.