Award-winning obesity researcher convicted of scientific fraud

A Sunday, Oct. 22  New York Times article provides a disturbing look at the world of scientific research.

A few months ago, former University of Vermont professor Eric Poehlman became the first researcher sentenced to prison for scientific misconduct. In 2005 Poehlman had pleaded guilty to lying on a federal grant application and "fabricating more than a decade's worth of scientific data on obesity, menopause and aging," according to the article in today's New York Times magazine.

Poehlman had been presented with the Lilly Scientific Achievement Award at the annual conference of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity six years ago. Poehlman's lecture at the NAASO event discussed his research on "energy dysregulation--an imbalance between the energy a person consumes and what he expends."

New York Times writer Jenneen Interlandi reports that Poehlman

presented fraudulent data in lectures and in published papers, and he used this data to obtain millions of dollars in federal grants from the National Institutes of Health....Before his fall from grace, Poehlman oversaw a lab where nealry a dozen students and postdoctoral researchers carried out his projects. His research earned him recognition among his peers and invitations to speak at conferences around the world. And he made nearly $140,000, one of the top salaries at the University of Vermont.

"Former protege" Walter DeNino turned Poehlman in. The investigation that ensued revealed years of fraudulent research and led to the "retraction or correction of 10 scientific papers, and Poehlman was banned forever from receiving public research money."

Poehlman was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison, followed by two years' probation. When he pled guilty in 2005, he had "agreed to pay $180,000 to settle a civil complaint filed by the University of Vermont plus $16,000 in attorneys' fees" for the former staffer who had reported him, whom Poehlman had tried to discredit.

The plea came with an especially devastating admission: he acknowledged that his most noted research, the longitudinal study on menopause [published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 1995], was almost entirely fabricated. Poehlman had tested only 2 women, not 35.

The article illustrates how so much of scientific research and peer review is based on trust that the data has been accurately collected, reported, and analyzed. With millions of dollars in grant money and six-figure incomes at stake, it's a wonder more obesity--and other--researchers haven't succumbed to faking data.

But then again, how do we know they haven't? Interlandi reports that other research associates, graduate students and postdocs had suspected Poehlman of scientific malfeasance. One had confronted Poehlman, but had been threatened with job loss. Faculty members to whom DeNino turned for guidance in the early stages of his suspicions told him his--DeNino's--career would be ruined if he blew the whistle.

"...the Poehlman case shows how a committed cheater can elude detection for years by playing on the trust--and the self-interest--of his or her junior colleagues," Interlandi writes.