Tag: politics

Trachea transplanters: Round 2 at UK Parliament

Trachea transplanters: Round 2 at UK Parliament

The Science and Technology Committee of the British House of Commons is now dealing with the trachea transplants performed by the scandal surgeon Paolo Macchiarini and his former parter at UCL, Martin Birchall as part of its inquiry into Research Integrity. Two UK scientists from Liverpool initiated this with their written submission from November 21st 2017 which I previously re-published: Patricia Murray, professor in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, previously a nurse on a Head and Neck unit, and Raphael Lévy, senior lecturer in nanotechnology. Their concerns were not just the past trachea transplants, but also the present clinical trials with bioengineered trachea and larynx which UCL is most keen to start with, following the recommendation of an investigative commission from last year. UCL’s problem is however, that the two phase 1 UK trials are suspended by the UK authorities, and the big phase 2 EU-sponsored trial cannot begin recruiting patients without the results from phase 1.

By now it looks like UCL and their laryngology professor Birchall are in a pickle. Their own reply to the letter by Murray and Levy was not really honest when describing past UCL trachea transplant patients to the Parliament committee. On top of it, it turned out Birchall was reusing data from same old experiments on 16 pigs across different publications which were meant to show separate studies. This, and many more inconsistencies of UCL’s reply to the House of Commons are addressed in the re-published new letter by Murray and Levy from January 30th 2018 below. Continue reading “Trachea transplanters: Round 2 at UK Parliament” →

Anne Peyroche removed as interim CNRS President as her publications are “questioned”

Anne Peyroche removed as interim CNRS President as her publications are “questioned”

Things are happening at the French state’s network of research institutes, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Their interim president, Anne Peyroche, was now removed prematurely from her position due to evidence of data manipulations in her papers on PubPeer, which I helped uncover. As all credit goes to PubPeer (run chiefly by two CNRS researchers), the announcement unfortunately makes no reference to my call for a minor revolution at CNRS, where these data manipulations were presented to wider public. The official letter which I obtained, is below, both in English translation and its French original.

Another problematic CNRS chief scientist, Catherine Jessus, who as director of l’Institut des sciences biologiques (INSB) is the head biologist at CNRS, was acquitted in November 2017 by a secret investigation at l’Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) despite all that long list of suspected data manipulations found in her papers (which I originally presented in this article). As Peyroche faces disciplinary investigation by her employer, the Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), nothing of that kind seems to threaten Jessus. Instead, those CNRS researchers who dare to protest against her  research integrity shortcomings are being threatened and terrorized, by a furious Jessus herself and her supporters at the top of CNRS.

Finally, a particularly data manipulations-ridden Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes (IBMP) in Strasbourg, former home of the legendary Olivier Voinnet (whom Jessus once investigated for doing those same naughty things she might have just a sbadly engaged herself in) has issued a Code for Ethics and Responsible research, which warns potential perpetrators:

IBMP defines scientific misconduct as:

The selective manipulation, fabrication or falsification of scientific data.

Thing is, IBMP director Laurence Maréchal-Drouard with her PhD student and now tenured lab member Thalia Salinas recently went to PubPeer to admit exactly this kind of misconduct, after I published evidence of data manipulations in Drouard’s many publications and Salinas’ doctorate thesis. Continue reading “Anne Peyroche removed as interim CNRS President as her publications are “questioned”” →

Appeal to Italian Parliament for an investigation into trachea transplants in Florence by Paolo Macchiarini

Appeal to Italian Parliament for an investigation into trachea transplants in Florence by Paolo Macchiarini

This is an Open Letter I sent today by email to the Italian Senate and its Health Committee, appealing for an investigation into the trachea transplants of the scandal surgeon Paolo Macchiarini.

It is published below bilingually, in Italian and in English. After the earlier Open Letter by Prof Rafael Cantera was signed by over 220 academics and thus led the University of Würzburg in Germany to investigate the trachea transplants of Macchiarini’s former colleagues, Heike and Thorsten Walles, I invite now

  • all Italian clinicians and researchers, in Italy and abroad, as well as their international colleagues working in Italy, to sign this letter in the comment section below. Please use your full affiliation.

The signed Open Letter will be then forwarded to both chambers of Italian parliament and other state authorities.

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Paolo Macchiarini, with his supporter, Governor of Tuscany Enrico Rossi. Photo credit: Corriere Fiorentino

Versione italiana

Appello per un’inchiesta sui trapianti di trachea eseguiti a Firenze da Paolo Macchiarini

Gentili Senatrici, Egregi Senatori membri della 12ª Commissione permanente Igiene e sanità,

questo appello è indirizzato a Voi affinché vogliate considerare l’opportunità di investigare uno dei più gravi casi internazionali di abuso ai danni di pazienti, che è avvenuto e si sta ancora oggi verificando, in grandissima parte anche in Italia.

Chi vi scrive è un giornalista scientifico indipendente, il cui sito web (in lingua inglese) è diventato la più completa fonte di informazioni oggi disponibile a livello globale sul caso di Paolo Macchiarini e della sua “medicina rigenerativa”.

In breve, queste sono state fino a oggi le sue vittime: https://forbetterscience.com/2017/06/16/macchiarinis-trachea-transplant-patients-the-full-list/

Forse avete già avuto modo di apprendere di questa scandalosa vicenda, nella quale persone malate sono state utilizzate quali cavie per esperimenti con trachee artificiali. La maggior parte di essi ora è deceduta, mentre i pochi sopravvissuti soffrono di gravi mutilazioni. Continue reading “Appeal to Italian Parliament for an investigation into trachea transplants in Florence by Paolo Macchiarini” →

Tissue-engineered tracheas: an assessment of the scientific, clinical and ethical implications

Tissue-engineered tracheas: an assessment of the scientific, clinical and ethical implications

Here I republish the written evidence submitted to by two UK scientists to the Science and Technology Committee of the British House of Commons and its inquiry into Research Integrity, as originally published on November 21st 2017. It deals with the trachea transplants performed by the surgeons Paolo Macchiarini and his former parter at UCL, Martin Birchall. The report’s lead author is Patricia Murray, professor in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, previously a nurse on a Head and Neck unit. She generously invited me in May 2017 to give a seminar at her department at the University of Liverpool on this topic. Her coauthor is Raphael Lévy, senior lecturer in nanotechnology and imaging at the same university. I wrote about his reproducibility studies on the topic of nanoparticles in this article.

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Prof. Patricia Murray

UCL recently investigated Birchall’s past trachea transplants, and recommended to continue with his two current clinical trials to transplant cadaveric decellurised trachea and larynx, regenerated with bone marrow cells, as I reported here. For some reason, UCL Registrar Wendy Appleby, when speaking as witness on November 21st in front of the Parliament Inqury, found herself unable to answer the rather straightforward question whether the UCL investigative commission advised to continue transplanting trachea or not (watch here, from 11:50 on). Appleby and her UCL were instructed by the Inquiry to address the concerns by Murray and Levy in writing.

Both clinical trials  Inspire and RegenVox were already placed by the supervising authorities on hold, Murray and Levy now call to stop the dangerous and science-unsupported experimenting on misinformed human patients and to return back to the lab.

Following is a copy of the (originally published on the UK Parliament website), Continue reading “Tissue-engineered tracheas: an assessment of the scientific, clinical and ethical implications” →

Call to research integrity, or at least a minor revolution at CNRS

Call to research integrity, or at least a minor revolution at CNRS

When I first started digging into the affair of data manipulations around the former star of plant sciences Olivier Voinnet in early 2015, I was sure to be dealing with a singular case of fraud in French science, which went totally unnoticed for decades. When 2 years later I wrote “a fish stinks from the head down” in my article about Voinnet’s former Strasbourg plant sciences institute and its problematic director, I did not know how far up to the very top this data manipulation scandal will go. Now, it looks like the entire leadership of  the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), French state’s own network of research institutes, might be corrupted and rotten. Research and its integrity at this “largest fundamental research organization in Europe” are overseen by the very people whose own publications should be under investigation for suspected misconduct. A minor revolution is in order in French science, for which I would like to make a case here.

The new interim president of the entire CNRS of 32,000 research employees with the annual budget of €3.2 Billion, Anne Peyroche, has seen now her own publications flagged on PubPeer for data irregularities. In fact, PubPeer itself, which is run by two CNRS employees, seems to be in a pickle. They now vigorously police and delete attempts of criticisms of Peyroche papers. Is the whistleblowing site fighting for its survival, afraid that CNRS might impose its demise any time? How far is the CNRS’ leadership prepared to go, now that their power is threatened by the evidence of misconduct in their own papers?

Catherine Jessus, being the director of its l’Institut des sciences biologiques (INSB) basically the head biologist at CNRS, already reacted to a stream of evidence against her publications on my site and on PubPeer. No, she is apparently not going to check lab books or provide for original data. Instead she declared to her colleagues that CNRS will soon start a massive legal action against yours truly. If true, the State of France announced to soon set its power and resources upon a German blogger, yet the French media refuses to report anything until CNRS issues an official statement in this regard. This information I have from direct sources.

Continue reading “Call to research integrity, or at least a minor revolution at CNRS” →

War, politics and academic publishing

War, politics and academic publishing

The Euromaidan revolution of winter 2013/2014 in Ukrainian capital Kiev toppled the Moscow-friendly president and quickly led to an establishment of a democratically elected EU-oriented government in Ukraine. Shortly after the collapse of the corrupt pro-Russian regime became evident, Russia, led by its dictatorial president Vladimir Putin, has moved to illegally occupy the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea through a method of military invasion, sham elections, and subsequent annexation of Crimea on 18 March 2014. None of this has been internationally recognized, neither by UN, United States or European Union (EU). In fact only six countries recognize Crimea as part of Russian Federation, including Syria, North Korea and Cuba.  EU has issued sanctions against Crimean politicians and businesses until the autonomous peninsula is governed by Ukraine again. However, many western businesses are keen on doing business in and with Russia, and sometimes it means recognizing the Crimean occupation. Some of them are the academic publishing giants Elsevier and Springer.

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Continue reading “War, politics and academic publishing” →