Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Federal Prosecutors have launched a gigantic fraud case against Duke University, North Carolina, accusing Duke University of embezzling $200 million in federal research grants, by presenting doctored data with their grant applications.
Whistleblower sues Duke, claims doctored data helped win $200 million in grants
On a Friday in March 2013, a researcher working in the lab of a prominent pulmonary scientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, was arrested on charges of embezzlement. The researcher, biologist Erin Potts-Kant, later pled guilty to siphoning more than $25,000 from the Duke University Health System, buying merchandise from Amazon, Walmart, and Target—even faking receipts to legitimize her purchases. A state judge ultimately levied a fine, and sentenced her to probation and community service.
Then Potts-Kant’s troubles got worse. Duke officials took a closer look at her work and didn’t like what they saw. Fifteen of her papers, mostly dealing with pulmonary biology, have now been retracted, with many notices citing “unreliable” data. Several others have been modified with either partial retractions, expressions of concern, or corrections. And last month, a U.S. district court unsealed a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former colleague of Potts-Kant. It accuses the researcher, her former supervisor, and the university of including fraudulent data in applications and reports involving more than 60 grants worth some $200 million. If successful, the suit—brought under the federal False Claims Act (FCA)—could force Duke to return to the government up to three times the amount of any ill-gotten funds, and produce a multimillion-dollar payout to the whistleblower.
The Duke case “should scare all [academic] institutions around the country,” says attorney Joel Androphy of Berg & Androphy in Houston, Texas, who specializes in false claims litigation. It appears to be one of the largest FCA suits ever to focus on research misconduct in academia, he says, and, if successful, could “open the floodgates” to other whistleblowing cases.
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The academic whistleblower, who presumably took a serious personal risk to expose this alleged fraudulent misuse of federal funds, stands to receive a multi-million dollar bounty if the embezzlement case is proven.
I somehow doubt this will be the last case of academic embezzlement which will be heard by the courts.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-12/university-of-queensland-professor-on-fraud-charges/5964476
Crime and corruption investigation ‘unprecedented’
University of Western Australia professor of law and criminology Mark Israel said it was the first case he knew that involved academic misconduct being dealt with by a state integrity agency.
“This case would have interested them because the alleged fraud related to public money,” he said.
If you really want to tackle research misconduct you still have to think about why researchers might be tempted to cut corners in the first place.
Mark Israel, law and criminology professor
Editor of the International Journal for Educational Integrity Dr Tracey Bretag agreed the actions taken by the CCC were unprecedented.
“Most often these sort of things are dealt with internally” she said.
“I think this shows people that academic or research integrity is a real world issue.”
Dr Bretag welcomed the precedent which she said could open the door for other state integrity agencies across the country to investigate similar allegations.
Former University of Queensland researcher Dr Caroline Barwood leaves a Brisbane court
Photo: Caroline Barwood has also been charged with six fraud offences. (ABC News)
“If researchers start to be called into account in this way more regularly perhaps we would see less breaches of research integrity,” she said.
Meanwhile professor Israel said: “If you really want to tackle research misconduct you still have to think about why researchers might be tempted to cut corners in the first place.”
I have to wonder whether the EPA cited any of her 15 papers on pulmonary biology in their ‘research’ to justify their PM2.5 tyranny.
I think you should also consider whether or not the WHO cites her work, or papers by others based on her work. The WHO committees, which are relatively easy to manipulate, are cited by the EPA here and there. They cite each other.
This is how it works:
A claim by the WHO serves as an input to an EPA target for exposure. The EPA model (or that of a contractor) serves to work an exposure level backwards to an emission rate in a modeled space/volume. The emission rate becomes the new regulation. To manipulate the permitted emission rate, it is easiest to manipulate the WHO’s models, which will be carried over to the EPA regs.
Like the ‘pay an NGO to sue me’ circle, the EPA can give money to a university to join the WHO committee to create a new WHO target which informs changed regs at the EPA. Everything operates at arms length.
[The mods point out that one can waltz for many hours while staying at arms length from one’s partner. .mod]
How utterly fitting and American, fraud.
Some years ago one of my sons was trying to make it to the major leagues. It was the Mark McQuire/Sammy Sosa era when steroids fueled home run derbies. He was called up briefly and his locker neighbor handed him a bottle of pills and told him to start taking them if wanted to stick.
MLB had created a culture of cheating to make big bucks…not unlike corrupted research institutions. BTW, he didn’t use the pills and he didn’t make it…
This is just a reminder that people will lie when money is involved. Not just trailer park trash, but highly educated, respectable people, professional degrees, etc. And, institutions will lie when money is involved.
So, when believers say it is inconceivable that highly regarded people and institutions would lie over money, roll your eyes and tell them they are clueless.Or, as Napoleon said to his staff officer who criticized his overly optimistic dispatches from Egypt during his doomed campaign there: “You understand nothing.”
I was always under the microscope in my work with radiation and what I said and wrote as there were so many ready to pounce on me. I was held ACCOUNTABLE in every way, and I knew it. I double and triple checked everything I did.
Accountability, is the name of the game.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-07-23/how-berlin-s-futuristic-airport-became-a-6-billion-embarrassment
There has been less harm with these faked results than those used by the CARB to set diesel particulate emission limits. And Erin Potts-Kant appears to have genuine credentials unlike Hien Tran.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/16/another-skeptical-university-professor-fired-related-to-carbs-pm2-5-air-pollution-regulation-scandal/
This article reminded me of another case of misuse or fraudulent use of funds in the RICO-20 and George Mason University research dept. I have heard little or nothing on this situation for months. A quick search does not produce any recent updates, and it has been about a year. It could be that this approach of whistle blower bounties could open up the information floodgates on this type of activity.
Tip of the iceberg.
Tip of the iceberg alright when you can get a Nobel for getting elected US President and they give them out to NGO organisations like the IPCC with sexual harassers in charge. They can’t hide behind pal review or Payola Review any longer-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nobel-prize-judges-fired-amid-row-over-windpipe-surgeon-paolo-macchiarini-a7228311.html