http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7326/1388/i

BMJ 2001;323:1388 ( 15 December )

News extra

GP who falsified research data found guilty of professional misconduct

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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