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   From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com   
      
   US vaccine researcher sentenced to prison for fraud   
      
   The case of Dong-Pyou Han illustrates the uneven nature   
   of penalties for scientific misconduct.   
      
   By Sara Reardon   
   Nature News & Comment   
   nature.com   
   Wednesday, July 1, 2015   
      
   [Caption] Biomedical scientist Dong-Pyou Han (centre)   
   confessed to fabricating and falsifying data on an HIV   
   vaccine. Charlie Neibergall - AP - PA   
      
   Rare is the scientist who goes to prison on research   
   misconduct charges. But on 1 July, Dong-Pyou Han, a   
   former biomedical scientist at Iowa State University in   
   Ames, was sentenced to 57 months for fabricating and   
   falsifying data in HIV vaccine trials. Han has also been   
   fined US$7.2 million and will be subject to three years   
   of supervised release after he leaves prison.   
      
   His case had a higher profile than most, attracting   
   interest from a powerful US senator. Han's harsh sentence   
   raises questions about how alleged research fraud is   
   handled in the United States, from decisions about   
   whether to prosecute to the types of punishments imposed   
   by grant-making agencies.   
      
   Scientists under scrutiny: An occasional series on   
   research misconduct in the United States.   
      
   Spiked data   
      
   Han was forced to resign from Iowa State in 2013 after   
   the university concluded that he had falsified the   
   results of several vaccine experiments supported by   
   grants from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).   
   In some cases, Han spiked rabbit blood samples with human   
   HIV antibodies so that the vaccine appeared to have   
   caused the animals to develop immunity to the virus.   
      
   In a confessional letter sent to the university just   
   before its investigation concluded, Han said that he   
   began the subterfuge to cover up a sample mix-up that he   
   had made years before.   
      
   The US Office of Research Integrity (ORI), which oversees   
   investigations into alleged misconduct involving NIH   
   funds, barred Han from receiving federal grants for three   
   years -- the maximum penalty that it generally imposes on   
   junior investigators. The case probably would have ended   
   there had it not drawn the attention of Senator Charles   
   Grassley (Republican, Iowa), who has a history of   
   investigating misconduct in the biomedical sciences.   
      
   "This seems like a very light penalty for a doctor who   
   purposely tampered with a research trial and directly   
   caused millions of taxpayer dollars to be wasted on   
   fraudulent studies," Grassley wrote in a February 2014   
   letter to the ORI. The office can issue lifetime funding   
   bans, but former ORI officials say that such punishment   
   is reserved for especially egregious cases, such as those   
   in which human subjects could have been endangered.   
      
   Criminal prosecution   
      
   In June of that year, after extensive media coverage of   
   the case and of Grassley's reaction to it, the federal   
   prosecutor in Des Moines pressed charges against Han. The   
   scientist was arrested and his case brought before a   
   grand jury. In February 2015, he pled guilty to two   
   felony charges of making false statements to obtain NIH   
   research grants. . . .   
      
   Continues at:   
      
   http://www.nature.com/news/us-vaccine-researcher-sentenced-to-pr   
   son-for-fraud-1.17660   
      
   Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi   
   Om Shanti   
      
   http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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