Berlin head ophthalmologist Joussen deploys lawyer to silence my reporting, demands from me €80,000 damages

On the key question of band duplication:

“The responsible employees of the Charité found that there were no band duplications in this work.”

I note that the lawyer does not say

“there were no band duplications in this work.”

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Oh man, I hope you have legal insurance

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Dear Leonid,
I was reading your blog for a while now, and I can’t help the impression are doing a good job for science here. Therefore, you have my full support!
Cheers,
Lech

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„[. . .] a brief reference to a possible investigation by the DFG [. . .]“

Ist jemand der Meinung, dass die DFG Aufrichtigkeit verfechtet?

„[. . .] The anonymous “criticisms” on PubPeer were reported to appropriate offices of the Charité, as well as Universities of [. . .] and Harvard, [. . .]“

Leon Mintz hatte behauptet:
„A new DNA sequencing technology has been developed at Harvard Medical School
using millions of HHMI and DOE funds (Multiplex Technology). I developed
software which permitted automatic reading of Multiplex DNA sequencing film.
In 1991-1993 it was the most efficient technology for the large scale DNA
sequencing projects.

In 1991, without any formalities, this technology was transferred to Genome
Therapeutics Corp (GTC) (then CRI) for the sequencing of leprosy and TB
genomes. In 1992, with the help of Dr. Church who originally conceived this
method, GTC tried to present this technology as “jointly developed.” After
I complained to Harvard OTL, GTC had to sign a temporary end user license,
but stalled negotiations for a permanent license.

In 1993, on multiple occasions, GTC presented Multiplex as “its proprietary
technology.” (They presented it at scientific conferences, in
press-releases and in professional magazines.) After Harvard OTL protested,
GTC hired Dr. Leder, the Chairman of the Department of Genetics at HMS, and
Dr. Church and received an exclusive license for Multiplex. GTC paid a
token price for this technology – $100,000 (plus a percent of the sequencing
revenue).

Dr. Leder, as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board and director of GTC,
received consulting fees and stock options worth $3 million. I do not know
how much GTC paid to Dr. Church. For two years, I was being forced to work
for GTC while being employed by HHMI.

=======
There are “Faculty Policies on Integrity in Science” for Faculty of
Medicine, Harvard University signed by the Dean Daniel C. Tosteson. One of
the items states:

COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH (PATENT LICENSING)

A. License negotiations should be governed by the University’s policy on
patents and copyrights, and especially the principle that any invention
derived from University-based research should be developed fully and rapidly
in the public interest. In some instances, this goal may be achieved by
granting non-exclusive licenses to every company that wishes to develop the
research commercially. In others, exclusive licenses may be more
appropriate. When they are, for example to justify the investment a
pharmaceutical company must make in testing before commercial introduction
of a new product, the potential exclusive licensee should satisfy Harvard that:

commercial products for public use will be developed as or more
effectively through exclusive licenses than through non-exclusive licenses;
and that
adequate resources can and will be committed to bringing these
commercial products promptly into use.

B. The University should retain the right to “march-in” if, after a
suitable period, a licensee has not developed and/or commercialized the
discovery satisfactorily.

C. The prospective granting of exclusive licenses in
industrially-sponsored research agreement raises a number of questions.
When one does not know what the invention will be, one cannot demonstrate in
advance that an exclusive license will be needed nor that the sponsor will
be able to develop it effectively. Accordingly, prospective exclusive
licensees should be required to give evidence of their willingness and
ability to develop and commercialize the kind of products or processes
likely to result from the research.

-> In cases in which the investigator or the University has a significant
private financial relationship with a potential industrial sponsor of
research, it should ordinarily be presumed that a prospective exclusive
license would create at least the perception of a conflict-of-interest.
Prospective exclusive licensing in such situation should only be
contemplated after the Dean or his designee (or, for agreements not
emanating from a single Faculty, a committee of Deans or their designees)
has examined the private financial relationships, the suitability of the
research, and the licensing terms. The Harvard Corporation should be
advised of the background and conditions of any such proposed arrangement.

October 1983

It should be pointed out that Multiplex technology was commercially
developed and put into production at HMS. After 1991, HMS researchers
provided support and improvements for this technology. There was absolutely
no justification for granting GTC the exclusive license! The
conflict-of-interest which involved senior Harvard faculty members made this
situation look very suspicious.

Why did Dean Tosteson approve such a situation? How can the Harvard
Corporation justify the transfer of valuable research results to a private
company while they continue to pass around a cup for more donations for the
“health research”?

After Warren Alpert gave $20 million to Harvard, the building in which I
worked was named “Warren Alpert Building.” Later, another building was
called “Leonard Goldensohn Building” for $19 million. Financier Thomas Lee
gave Harvard $22 with no-strings-attached.

On one end people give multimillion donations to Harvard to pay for the
research, on the other end professors take results of research to private
companies and become multimillionaires. For as long as there will be
suckers who give Harvard $20 million to put their name on a building as if
there is an honor it that, Harvard is not going to change its ways.

Do Msr. Alpert, Goldensohn and Lee think that engraving their names on the
walls of the den of thieves is a proper tribute to their life achievements?

            *****

There have been a lot of complaints recently about the decrease in
government funds for scientific research. The concern should be, instead:
What do scientists do with these funds? My personal observations indicate
that successful results or funds are transferred in order to benefit private
companies and the scientists connected to these companies.

Even on the highly successful projects, very little income is reinvested
into scientific research. Returns to society are meager while scientific
entrepreneurs pocket millions and apply for more government and charitable
funds. Why should taxpayers trust such a system and give it more of their
money?

Leon Mintz April 7, 1997“

Al C Higgins hatte geklagt:
„ A Review

 Lewis Wolpert,  The Unnatural Nature of Science:  Why

Science Does Not Make (Common) Sense. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1994 (originally,
London: Faber and Faber, 1992)
[. . .]

[. . .]

[. . .] Harvard University
Press republished this on the cheap (and did nothing to
emend the errors).

[. . .]“

S. Rex Dalton, »Harvard Faces Questions On Missing Data«, »Nature«, 386, 20. März 1997, Seite. 206 –
„[SAN DIEGO] The US Department of Veterans’ Affairs is conducting an inquiry into whether the absence of documentation on key experiments leading to the publication of research carried out at a centre affiliated to Harvard Medical School should be treated as scientific misconduct.

Although internal investigations at Harvard last year led university officials to the conclusion that “it was not possible to ascertain whether the experiments had been done as described in the paper,” they also decided that absence of documentation did not constitute scientific misconduct.

Officials of the veterans’ affairs department, which funded the research, are now conducting their own investigation and reviewing the Harvard inquiry. Meanwhile, another federal agency is investigating a claim by a researcher that she lost her job after she questioned the paper when it was being submitted for publication.

The research concerns a genetic defect causing a Factor VII deficiency in an Italian patient. It was carried out under the direction of Kenneth A. Bauer, chief of haematology-oncology at the Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center at West Roxbury, Massachusetts. The disputed experiments were carried out by Arnaldo A. Arbini. a physician from the University of Milan who was doing research in Bauer’s laboratory, and published last June in the journal Blood. Arbini has since moved to Yale University.

Bauer and Arbini say they received written reprimands from Harvard faculty authorities for the shortcomings in their data. Arbini admits that there was no laboratory notebook entry to document the questioned experiments, but says that this was because they were repetitions of earlier work. “In retrospect it obviously was a mistake,” says Arbini. “But this was a completely innocent omission.”

Bauer denies that there was any attempt to falsify data or any “wilful misrepresentation of data.” He calls the missing data “an inexplicable lapse.”

In a letter last October to the researcher who questioned the paper, Margaret L. Dale, an attorney in Harvard’s Office of Research Issues, admitted that “there was concern that a paper had been published reporting on experiments for which there were not extant primary data.” But Dale wrote that there was not sufficient evidence to conclude that there was scientific misconduct.

Dale pointed out that the experiments “were repeated in September under the supervision of an independent observer. As a result of that process, it was determined that the paper could stand uncorrected.” Peter V. Tishler, a Harvard physician who is associate chief of staff for education at the veterans’ affairs department in West Roxbury, said he observed the repeating of the experiments.

The issue of whether the absence of primary data notebooks constitutes scientific misconduct has varied over the years. In a case in the late 1980s involving a former biochemist from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston,Texas, who made use of research results from a paper he was reviewing, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) decided that the absence of primary data was an important factor in finding misconduct.

But Christopher B. Pascal, acting director of the NIH’s Office of Research Integrity (ORI), says that recent decisions show “the mere absence of records alone isn’t sufficient proof of scientific misconduct.” Pascal says that NIH is concerned that an individual might use a lack of records as an excuse for “dumping records” to cover up the fabrication of data. “The problem is, you have to prove intent,” he says.

Paul M. Hoffman, the veterans’ affairs department’s director of medical research, says he is unable yet to make a judgement on whether the absence of primary data was scientific misconduct in the Harvard case. “It makes good sense that you should be able to document what you are publishing,” says Hoffman, a neurovirology researcher. “If you can’t, you can publish anything.”

The same point is made by Dinah K. Bodkin, the former researcher in Bauer’s laboratory who expressed concern about the Arbini paper. “Harvard has stood the definition of scientific misconduct on its head,” she says.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight in Washington, DC, which is assisting Bodkin calls Harvard’s conclusion about the lack of notebooks “patently absurd.” In seeking a thorough investigation by the veterans’ affairs department, Brian wrote that Harvard’s handling of the case “appears to fly in the face of overwhelming facts.” Don Gibbons, a spokesman for Harvard, says that the university thoroughly investigated the complaint before issuing its opinion last October.

Bodkin, who was not a co-author of the disputed paper, filed a claim of retaliation last year against Bauer for dropping her from his laboratory team immediately after she questioned Arbini’s research in December 1995. Bauer denied the charge, saying that Bodkin’s funding was running out and there were problems with her productivity. The US Office of Special Counsel, a watchdog agency that investigates such claims of retaliation against federal employees, is carrying out its own investigation.“

Ich meine, dass The Daily What The F. über Harvard Uni – ohne den Name dieser Uni – berichtet hat.

„One cannot and does not have to reply to an anonymous person.“

Der Anwalt Johannes Eisenberg ist kein Naturwissenschaftler 🙂 Wilhelm (Billy) Joel hätte gesagt: „Despite the law, you cannot hide the truth.“.

Ferniglab: “Bound to happen, reach for a lawyer rather than admit to having done it wrong!”

Using a lawyer to censor criticism is not inevitable. “Dr.” Tiago Fleming Outeiro had utilised none of a lawyer and a police force and a public-prosecution service when he moaned about criticism that I placed on a website of the Portuguese laboratory LIP (Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas) at the Department of Putative Physics of the putative University of Coimbra. Instead of exposing himself to a counterclaim for malicious prosecution, he maliciously said false facts to LIP. Therefore LIP recommended to the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology to not pay me. “Nature”; Elizabeth Gibney; David Reay; Ivan Oransky; Retraction Watch; Neuroskeptic; Automattic; Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva; Emily Elizabeth Dory; Molly K. Lindsey; the “Journal of Law, Technology & Policy”; the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign et al. immorally, knowingly cover up related malconduct.

Persons of LIP who were involved with dishonourably covering up on behalf of “Dr.” Tiago Fleming Outeiro include: Rui Ferreira Marques; Rui Miguel Curado da Silva; João Silva (a pity to claim this as he is always polite to me, even after I was locked out); Jorge Gomes; Mário João Martins Pimenta; Paulo Jorge Ribeiro da Fonte; and Carlos Manuel.

Ferniglab: “When you get legal advice, it will be interesting to find out whether comment in public on a publication (which is in the public domain and placed there by the authors for scrutiny) can actually be silenced.”

Of course it is legal to silence public comment on a publication.

Lydia Maniatis: “[. . .] factual inaccuracies (if this is a crime) [. . .]

[. . .]”

Dr. Leonid Schneider resides in Germany. Malicious falsehood is a crime in Germany. It is much more difficult to be convicted of a crime than a civil illegality. (However, malicious falsehood is also a civil illegality in Germany.)

Edgardo Sepulveda: “Oh man, I hope you have legal insurance”.

If he would be too poor to pay for legal representation and if he would not have access to legal representation via e.g. a union or insurance, then he would probably be eligible for legal aid (“Antrag auf Bewilligung von Beratungshilfe” “JV 200 Schriftlicher Antrag auf Gewährung von Beratungshilfe (02.14)” – JV_200__2.14__Formular.pdf – and “Erklärung über die persönlichen und wirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse bei Prozess- oder Verfahrenskostenhilfe” “JV 205 (2) Erklärung über die persönlichen und wirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse bei Prozess- oder Verfahrenskostenhilfe (2.14)” – JV_205__2___2.14__Formular.pdf ).

Andreea: “[. . .] they cannot prohibit the publication of a letter they sent you. [. . .]”

Why?

Andreea: “[. . .] false light: nobody can tell you what should be apparent or can seem to you because you are not bound to proving it beyond a reasonable doubt as we are not in a criminal court. [. . .]”

Why dost thou believe that false light is not a crime in Germany?

Andreea: “We need to prove that the email is really hers because the burden of proof lays on us if they say that it isn’t. The situation with gmail accounts is murky. [. . .]”

Sie dürfen Google um Beweismittel bitten. Sie können z. B. das Bundesdatenschutzgesetz versuchen, oder z. B. das »Data-Protection Act« der Republik Irland; die Richtlinie 95/46/EG zum Schutz natürlicher Personen bei der Verarbeitung personenbezogener Daten und zum freien Datenverkehr; ein Gesetz von Belgien »Privacywet« – »Koninklijk besluit ter uitvoering van de wet van 8 december 1992 tot bescherming van de persoonlijke levenssfeer ten opzichte van de verwerking van persoonsgegevens« / »Loi vie privée« – »Arrêté royal portant exécution de la loi du 8 décembre 1992 relative à la protection de la vie privée à l’égard des traitements de données à caractère personnel«); ein Gesetz von Finnland (»Henkilötietolain (523/1999)«); oder ein Gesetz
von einem andrem Land von Google (
http://WWW.Google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/index.html
).

JJovel – und Apolo – :
„[. . .]

[. . .] Herr Eisenberg is trying to defend the indefensible, therefore he has no chances to succeed.

[. . .]“

Sie spinnen leider. Viele Entscheidungen sind natürlich unfair.

Klaas van Dijk:
„[. . .]

I finally would like to advise you that you are of course always willing to correct your blog posts, but that you need the background information [. . .]

[. . .]“

During 2013 I had been subjected to aggravated assaults because of Professrix Maria Filomena de Osório Pinto dos Santos Figueiredo. During August 2014 Leonid Schneider has published (probably originally unintentionally) malicious falsehood against me on Retraction Watch. Shortly afterwards, also during August 2014, I have provided Leonid Schneider with background evidence but alas by July 2016 he did not correct any blog post about me.

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