ORI Finds No Misconduct in Fisher Case

Extract

The Office of Research Integrity of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found no evidence of scientific misconduct by Bernard Fisher, M.D., in its final report issued Feb. 28.

The ORI had investigated whether Fisher, in his capacity as the principal investigator and chair of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) at the University of Pittsburgh, had committed scientific misconduct by publishing NSABP research papers that may have contained falsified and fabricated research data submitted by St. Luc Hospital in Montreal, an institution participating in the NSABP. ORI found in February 1993 that the principal investigator for the NSABP project at St. Luc hospital committed 115 instances of data fabrication and falsification in 99 patient records by systematically altering data to make it appear that his patients were eligible to participate in NSABP clinical trials.

The ORI determined that the papers published by NSABP after February 1993 (that contained St. Luc data) did not include falsified or fabricated data.