Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5361
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Publication type: news
Former UVM researcher sentenced for falsifying work
Associated Press 2006 Jun 28
http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2006/06/28/former_uvm_researcher_sentenced_for_falsifying_work/
Full text:
Former UVM researcher sentenced for falsifying work
June 28, 2006
BURLINGTON, Vt. —A former University of Vermont College of Medicine professor was ordered Wednesday to serve a year and a day in federal prison for using false data to obtain federal research grants.
Eric Poehlman, 50, who left UVM in 2001 for the University of Montreal and was fired from there amid revelations about his scientific misconduct, will serve the sentence at a federal prison work camp in Maryland.
An official with the National Institutes of Health said Poehlman’s case marked the first time a researcher would serve time in prison for falsifying data to obtain federal grants.
Judge William Sessions III imposed the sentence despite Poehlman’s plea in a letter to the court that he not be required to serve jail time, and his statement in court Wednesday that he was “someone who has changed. I’m not a professor. I realize that door has closed.”
Poehlman, a specialist in exercise physiology, changed and made up research in applications and papers on the effect of menopause on women’s metabolism, the impact of aging on older men and women, the impact of hormone replacement therapy on obesity in post-menopausal women, the study of metabolism in Alzheimer’s patients and the effect of endurance training on metabolism.
In an agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty in connection with one $542,000 grant; the government said he defrauded federal agencies out of $2.9 million.
Poehlman also told Sessions that he was under pressure to win federal grants, saying the number of grants a researcher received “determined your academic wealth.”
The court also heard from Dr. Sally Rockey, deputy director of the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Extramural Research, who said “science itself is compromised” when a researcher falsifies data. She called such data “a break in the chain, and all the links that follow can be compromised.”
Rockey said Poehlman is only the second academic researcher charged with a federal crime for falsifying research results to get a federal grant. She said the first was a University of Pittsburgh professor who was convicted in 1988 but did not serve time in jail.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Kelley told the court, “This is part of a new era when people are taking this kind of conduct more seriously.”
Sessions said before imposing the sentence: “I generally think deterrence is significant, perhaps more so in this case. The scientific community may be watching.” Sessions told Poehlman he had “violated the public trust.”
Poehlman arrived at the Burlington campus in 1987 as an assistant professor. He later worked for three years at the University of Maryland in Baltimore before returning to UVM and being made a full professor.
During that time, according to the to the federal Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity, Poehlman falsified “preliminary studies” as justifications for further research in applications for 17 grants totaling $11.6 million.
“While many of the grant applications were not awarded, NIH and USDA expended approximately $2.9 million in research funding based on grant applications with false and fabricated research data,” says the Office of Research Integrity’s Web site.
Poehlman will be permanently barred from getting more federal research grants, and was ordered to write letters of retraction and correction to several scientific journals.
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