Science journalism by Leonid Schneider, on research integrity and academic publishing in life sciences and biomedicine
A PhD thesis was defended in 2017 at CNRS plant science institute IBMP in Strasbourg, it tested the anti-flu product L52 by the French homeopathy manufacturer Lehning Laboratories. The homeopathic concoction was found very effective, with potential use for human health!
Much of French media and academia, and certainly also the international plant science community now debates a hot conspiracy theory: what if Olivier Voinnet is actually innocent, a visionary genius who fell prey to a conspiracy of fraudulent colleagues and scheming bureaucrats? I discuss here the widespread dishonesty and data manipulation among Voinnet’s co-authors and peers. Is French research culture to blame?
The newspaper l’Express reported that Academie de Sciences commissioned an investigative report about the papers of former CNRS interim president Anne Peyroche, and that CNRS and the French Ministry of Research tried to suppress it. Peyroche herself could not be heard, because she is hospitalised since the affair started. So her co-authors took that as opportunity to blame Peyroche for every fake figure. Meanwhile, duplicated data was found even in Research Minister’s Frederique Vidal’s paper.
Olivier Voinnet, responsible for probably the biggest fraud scandal in plant sciences, is back in the news. His present employer ETH Zürich has now concluded, in collaboration with CNRS, their second investigation into data manipulations in Voinnet papers. The ETH professor was declared innocent of any data manipulations, in the past, present and even future.
Jaw-dropping corrections issued for the French martyr saint of research integrity, Catherine Jessus, head of biology branch at the French CNRS. All these works of science contained such appalling Photoshop manipulations that the academic publisher had to bend over backwards and hide behind COPE guidelines to invent a reason against retractions.
As Le Monde brought into public light the Catherine Jessus affair with its whitewashed data manipulation and the growing academic protest, a counter-revolution put its foot in. A signature list in the worst Stalinist tradition was published, organised by the very elite of French academia (mostly members of Academie de Sciences), and signed by hundreds, mostly professors and CNRS group leaders, including a former CNRS president. Their demands, endorsed in a secret press release by current CNRS president and Sorbonne University president: punishment for 10 anonymous authors of the Jessus counter-report and for a Le Monde journalist.
Sorbonne University in Paris, where the CNRS chief biologist Catherine Jessus, holds a professorship, delivered an outrageous whitewashing report about her manipulations. Now, an Open Letter has been published by around 10 unnamed French biologists. It plucks apart the Sorbonne report of Jessus papers.
An update to the ongoing cartoon Stalinism propaganda and purge activities at the EU largest research institution, the French CNRS,Continue Reading
Following my recent article about attempts to fix data irregularities in the papers by CNRS’ chief biologist and director ofContinue Reading
UPDATED. My earlier reporting about image irregularities in the papers by CNRS’ chief biologist and director of l’Institut des sciencesContinue Reading
