http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7326/1388/i
BMJ 2001;323:1388 ( 15 December )
Owen Dyer London
A Glasgow general practitioner who admitted falsifying research data was
found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council
last week.
But an allegation that his actions had endangered the safety of patients was
found not proved, and he has been allowed to remain on the medical register
subject to certain conditions.
Dr Chaman Lal Anand, aged 70, was ordered to take no part in clinical trials
for 12 months. He was also censured for overprescribing controlled drugs to
drug misusers.
The singlehanded GP admitted submitting inaccurate data in a 1995
randomised, double blind, multinational phase III trial of an antihypertensive
drug, known as Vera Tran 067 for Knoll pharmaceuticals. The study protocol
demanded that electrocardiography be repeated on more than one occasion for
each participating patient.
Instead, Dr Anand submitted multiple copies of the same electrocardiograms
to the trial managers, claiming they had been taken on different visits. The
GMC’s professional conduct committee cleared Dr Anand of enrolling patients in
the study without obtaining their informed consent and of endangering patient
safety.
Declaring Dr Anand guilty of serious professional misconduct, the
committee's chairman, Jack McCluggage, said: "Your decision to submit
inaccurate and misleading data was deliberate and therefore quite improper.
Such conduct fell short of the standards of integrity to be expected of medical
practitioners."
Dr Anand was also found guilty of serious professional misconduct on
unrelated charges involving diazepam prescriptions he gave to two temporary
patients.
The patients were both receiving methadone as well as other drugs from their
own general practitioner. Dr Anand failed to liaise with their regular doctor,
who gave evidence against him at the hearing.
The committee directed that for 12 months Dr Anand should take on no
patients who are addicted to controlled drugs without the express permission of
the medical director of his primary care trust. He was also ordered to have
quarterly meetings with the trust’s clinical governance leader to review his
prescribing data in controlled drugs.
Dr McCluggage said: "Despite your limited knowledge of
these patients and your failure to take sufficient steps to verify the
information you were given, you continued to prescribe large amounts of
diazepam to them. Given the inherent dangers of overprescribing controlled
drugs, both to these individual patients and to society as a whole, your actions
were wholly inappropriate."
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