Harvard cancer institute moves to retract six studies, correct 31 others amid data manipulation claims
By Matt Egan, CNN
(CNN) — The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a prestigious Harvard teaching school, is moving to retract six studies and correct 31 others following allegations of data manipulation.
The steps by the Harvard Medical School affiliate come after a molecular biologist published a blog post earlier this month alleging researchers falsified data by manipulating images.
More than 50 papers are part of the ongoing review by Dana-Farber into four researchers, all of whom have faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School. Four of the papers under review were authored by Dana-Farber CEO Laurie Glimcher.
“We are committed to a culture of accountability and integrity. Therefore, every inquiry is examined fully to ensure the soundness of the scientific literature,” Barrett Rollins, Dana-Farber’s research integrity officer and chief science officer emeritus, said in a statement to CNN on Monday. “Dana-Farber has been swift and decisive in this regard.”
Six manuscripts have retractions underway, 31 have been “identified as warranting corrections” and another one with a reported error “remains under examination,” according to Rollins.
Dana-Farber has not determined whether misconduct has occurred.
The retractions and corrections add to the pressure on Harvard following weeks of scrutiny over how the Ivy League school responded to allegations of plagiarism facing Claudine Gay, who stepped down as the university’s president earlier this month. Gay requested corrections to some of her writings due to what the university described as “inadequate citation.”
Harvard submitted a trove of documents to Congress late last week as part of an investigation from a House committee.
Earlier this month, Sholto David published a blog post titled “Dana-Farberications at Harvard University,” alleging researchers at the cancer institute manipulated images and data. David suggested Adobe Photoshop was used to copy and paste images in some of the papers.
According to Rollins, Dana-Farber said it was already reviewing “potential data errors” in multiple cases that the blog listed and stressed that the issues uncovered do not necessarily amount to misconduct.
“The presence of image discrepancies in a paper is not evidence of an author’s intent to deceive,” Rollins said in the statement. “That conclusion can only be drawn after a careful, fact-based examination which is an integral part of our response. Our experience is that errors are often unintentional and do not rise to the level of misconduct.”
Some allegations raised in the blog against Dana-Farber researchers are “wrong,” while others concern data generated in outside labs, Rollins said.
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