Welcome to Fraud Rounds, a regular look at what happens when clinical research goes wrong. For background, see this post.
In February 2011, JAMA published a that seemed cautiously optimistic: Postmenopausal women with the condition, according the the findings, might benefit somewhat from nitroglycerin ointment. But a little less than 5 years later, the journal retracted the paper, saying that a university investigation had found that Sophie Jamal, MD, PhD, had "."
Last week, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), which had partially funded the work, announced Jamal had been . It turns out that not only had Jamal manipulated her data, she had "falsely accused a research assistant of having carried out the manipulations." Jamal will also have to pay back the costs of her grants.
Jamal's timing was unfortunate, at least for her: She became the first researcher found to have committed fraud whom the CIHR decided to name. Until the announcement, the agency had cited confidentiality rules and issued only anonymized reports.
More Fraud Rounds: A Vindicated Whistleblower Takes A $150K Pay Cut