Norwegian dentist falsified grant

The Office of Research Integrity in the US Department of Health and Human Services reported last week that Jon Sudbø, a Norwegian dental researcher, falsified data in his grant application to the National Cancer Institute. The findings add one more piece of fraud to a career's worth of scientific misconduct.

"In essence, I don't think he ever wrote a truthful sentence," Anders Ekbom, head of clinical epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, told The Scientist.

Eckbom chaired an investigation commissioned by the Norwegian Radium Hospital and University of Oslo, both of which hosted Sudbø's research. The investigation reported in June of 2006 that Sudbø's PhD thesis and several subsequent papers contained manipulated data and should be retracted.

Last week, the Office of Research Integrity added to this list of charges a figure in a grant application that falsified survival data for patients with oral pre-malignant lesions. Additionally, in a progress report for the grant, Sudbø falsified the number of patients screened for a study.

The grant referred to by the Office of Research Integrity was awarded to Scott Lippmann at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Sudbø was a subawardee of the grant, and since August, 2004, $150,000 per year went to a project led by Sudbø. A spokesperson for the university said that Lippmann could not be reached by deadline.

Sudbø's research on oral cancer investigated the preventive effects of ibuprofen and the genetic markers of oral cancer. Numerous publications by Sudbø have been retracted since the European investigation concluded, including a 2001 New England Journal of Medicine paper that has been cited more than 150 times and a Lancet paper that has been cited about 25 times. (Some of these citations are reports on the fraud case rather than scientific studies.)

In Norway, Sudbø lost his license to practice medicine and was stripped of his PhD. But according to Norwegian news reports, he is now a dentist in a public clinic in Seljord, Norway. According to one report, "Sudbø has been granted limited authorization to work again as a dentist." Sudbø could not be reached for comment.

A press contact at the National Cancer Institute wrote in an Email to The Scientist that she did not know whether charges would be pressed against Sudbø. According to the Office of Research Integrity's report, Sudbø volunteered not to work with the US government again. A representative from the Office of Research Integrity was unable to comment by deadline.

Kerry Grens
kgrens@the-scientist.com


Links within this article:

Office of Research Integrity case summary
http://ori.hhs.gov/misconduct/cases/Sudbo.shtml

S. Pincock, "Lancet study faked," The Scientist, January 16, 2006,
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/22952/

Anders Ekbom
http://www.ki.se/medicin/medicine_ks/

Report from the investigation commission appointed by Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet MC and the University of Oslo
http://www.rikshospitalet.no/content/res_bibl/6876.pdf

S. Pincock, "Sudbo: repeat offender," The Scientist, July 3, 2006.
http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/23838/

Scott Lippmann
http://www.mdanderson.org/

G.D. Curfman et al, "Retraction," New England Journal of Medicine, 355:1927, 2006.
http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/17079770

R. Horton, "Retraction," Lancet, 367:382, 2006.
http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/16458751

"New job for disgraced dentist," Aftenposten, June 5, 2007.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1821140.ece