Ecolog:
After several misdirections, I found the following link.
http://chronicle.com/article/Company-Says-Research-It/48319/
It would be most convenient if the original poster of articles or excerpts
would include a link rather than just cite the source's name.
I don't know how prevalent this sort of thing is, does anyone else? How do
we know that the alleged facts in the article are true? Blumenstyk cites no
sources. That is common among journalists, but in this day of false
accusations and fraudulent posts besmirching the reputations of innocent
people before they can correct the record or are even aware of it,
journalist should perhaps lead the way in providing links to sources or at
least citing chapter and verse.
Perhaps we, the news consumers, should all insist upon links, citations, and
properly attributed quotes before spreading the word? Or, for that matter,
before even reading material that lacks such information?
WT
"The suspension of judgment is the highest exercise in intellectual
discipline." --Raymond M. Gilmore
----- Original Message -----
From: "Judith S. Weis" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] falsifying results in clinical research, why so
common?
There's a lot more money to be made in this sort of biomedical and
clinical research, of course, than there is in ecology and evolution.
I recently read that the famous other "fake" - the midwife toad, may not
have been a fake after all, but don't remember the details at the moment.
Why, do we continue to see this ticker tape of falsified studies
coming out of the clinical sciences?
The last ecological/evolution study I recall like this was Piltdown Man!
If it is "just human nature" why do we see so few in ecology and
evolution?
I thought this might be a good talking point! :)
Looking forward to the discussion!
(oops left off the article! see below!)
Malcolm
From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Company Says Research It Sponsored at Pitt and Hopkins Was Fraudulent
By Goldie Blumenstyk
Technology-transfer deals at universities can easily go sour, but
rarely do they end up with the corporate partner suing an inventor and
his institution for research fraud.
The University of Pittsburgh and the Johns Hopkins University now find
themselves in that unusual situation, as a company that says it spent
millions of dollars sponsoring research by a prominent scientist,
expecting to use his promising inventions as the basis for a new test
for prostate cancer, is now accusing the professor and the
institutions of falsifying his results.
The company, Onconome Inc., says the professor, Robert H. Getzenberg,
lied about his findings and progress from 2001 through 2008. Mr.
Getzenberg has been a professor of urology and director of research at
a urology institute at Johns Hopkins since 2005; previously he held
similar posts at Pitt. He was also a paid scientific adviser to
Onconome.
Onconome, of Redmond, Wash., was founded in 2001 to turn Mr.
Getzenberg's work into a cancer-detection test. In addition to
financing some of Mr. Getzenberg's research, the company had obtained
licenses from Pitt and Johns Hopkins for rights to commercialize his
research. It says it spent more than $13-million supporting the
research and on licensing fees.
A Company's Suspicions
As recently as 2007-when Johns Hopkins issued a news release about a
study Mr. Getzenberg published in the journal Urology that suggested
his work could produce a better test for prostate cancer than the
existing PSA test-there were no obvious signs of trouble.
At the time, however, a writer familiar with the biotechnology
industry wrote a commentary questioning the wisdom of John Hopkins's
decision to issue a news release about such preliminary work, noting
that the university's reputation might have given the study more
prominence than it would have otherwise received if only Onconome had
publicized it.
According to separate lawsuits filed by Onconome against Johns Hopkins
and against Pitt, the company soon after that began to suspect Mr.
Getzenberg's findings because they couldn't be replicated by other
scientists. Onconome, which says investors put money into the company
because they believed in Mr. Getzenberg's findings, is seeking
repayment of its money and other damages.
Mr. Getzenberg did not return telephone and e-mail messages seeking
comment. Officials at Pitt said they had not yet been served with the
lawsuit, which was filed just days ago in federal court in Pittsburgh,
and declined to comment.
Johns Hopkins also declined to comment. But it has filed a answer to
the lawsuit, which was filed in state court in July. In its answer,
the university cites a number of defenses, including one that seeks to
bar Onconome's claims because of its "fraud" on the university, on Mr.
Getzenberg, or both. It also says all research was conducted in
conformity with scientific standards.
--
Malcolm L. McCallum
Associate Professor of Biology
Managing Editor,
Herpetological Conservation and Biology
Texas A&M University-Texarkana
Fall Teaching Schedule:
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