Science journalism by Leonid Schneider, on research integrity and academic publishing in life sciences and biomedicine
Cancer researcher Giorgio Zauli publicly declared himself exonerated because he simply forbids his University of Ferrara to publish the investigative report. The ultra-right connected rector used the occasion to equal his critics to Nazis and to announce defamation lawsuits.
In the David Latchman affair, UCL denied me access to investigative reports. The university however did give same files to proper journalists now. The censored documents still do not reveal fraudulent papers, but at least we know the Master of Birkbeck was found guilty of misconduct by recklessness. Trice.
After her lawyers threatened Linköping whistleblower Jaywant Phopase, accusing him of slander and demanding money, regmed researcher May Griffith wrote to me. She sent me a whole dossier: all misconduct findings against her were overruled, even in court. Turns out, ethics dumping is good and anyway, she is not responsible for her own publications.
The University of Manchester found out that someone has secretly manipulated data in the papers of their star cancer researcher, Richard Marais. Who might that be?
Li Jia is Chinese cancer researcher apparently training for Fraud Olympics. She fabricates data at speed and excess, and in several disciplines.
Magdalena Migocka is a shooting star of plant sciences in Poland. Now she will have to retract at least two papers, for which she blames her incompetent students.
Professor Shukla is a bigwig in Indian toxicology because he uses fresh fruit, tea and curry spices to cure cancer. For maximum effect, his lab resorts to fabricating data in Photoshop.
Gary Stacey is soybean researcher at University of Missouri and ASPB member. Whatever problems you might have with his science, the university already attested him a “clean bill of health”. Get a life.
This guest post by Elisabeth Bik will conclude the Fraud Triptych started by Smut Clyde. We shall meet a former mentee of Paul B Fisher, Sujit Bhutia, who is now busy fabricating data at his own lab at National Institute of Technology in India. Our next encounter will be with Fisher’s and Benjamin Bonavida’s past collaborator Devasis Chatterjee, who recently abruptly stopped being a principal investigator at the Brown University.
The new ERC President Mauro Ferrari used to closely collaborate with two very controversial cancer researchers at MD Anderson in Texas: Anil Sood and Gabriel Lopez-Beerestein. Will that experience affect ERC’s already wanting stance on research integrity?
