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BMJ 2003;326:352 ( 15 February )

News

GMC suspends doctor for research fraud

Owen Dyer, London

A cardiologist who published fraudulent research in the BMJ was last week suspended for a year by the General Medical Council.

Dr Mohammed Naeem Shaukat was found to have altered mortality data to produce results that showed that British patients of Indian origin fared significantly worse than other British patients after first heart attacks. On 1 March 1997 the research was published in the BMJ, in an article entitled "First myocardial infarction in patients of Indian subcontinent and European origin: comparison of risk factors, management, and long term outcome" (BMJ 1997;314:639-42)[Abstract/Free Full Text].

Ten months later, in January 1998, the BMJ received and published a letter signed by the article's six authors, including Dr Shaukat, which stated: "Further examination of the data on which this paper was based, in the context of another project, has revealed important inaccuracies such that the conclusions of the paper cannot be sustained. We therefore wish to withdraw it unreservedly" (BMJ 1998;316:116)[Free Full Text].

All of the authors worked at Leicester University Medical School when the article was published. Dr Shaukat was also a fellow of the British Heart Foundation. He is now a consultant cardiologist at Kettering General Hospital.

Leicester University launched an internal investigation into the research, which lasted nearly two years and led to a complaint from the dean's office to the GMC's professional conduct committee. The university declined to comment on the case during the investigation and in the GMC hearing, and the BMJ was not told why the research was invalid. The GMC case began in September last year but was adjourned until last week to give Dr Shaukat time to prepare his defence.

Douglas Gentleman, chairing the GMC's professional conduct committee, told Dr Shaukat: "You deliberately entered false data into the study in order to produce a particular result. You not only sought to mislead others, but also implicated colleagues, in the publication of a wholly unreliable research paper.

"The committee have therefore concluded that, in order to mark the gravity with which it views your conduct, it is appropriate to impose the maximum sanction available, short of erasure."

© 2003 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd


 

PDF of this article Email this article to a friend Respond to this article PubMed citation Related articles in PubMed Download to Citation Manager Search Medline for articles by: Dyer, O. Alert me when: New articles cite this article

Collections under which this article appears: Professional conduct and regulation Research and publication ethics

© 2003 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd

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