Researchers fake AIDS study data

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Researchers fake AIDS study data

 

By Robert Stacy McCain THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published December 5, 2003

 

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Three Maryland researchers have admitted fabricating interviews with

teenagers for a study on AIDS prevention that received more than $1 million

in federal funds. Lajuane Woodard, Sheila Blackwell and Khalilah Creek were

employed by the University of Maryland at Baltimore's department of

pediatrics as researchers on the study, funded by a grant from the National

Institutes of Health (NIH). The three admitted they made up interviews with

teenagers, which they had claimed took place from May to August 2001, for

the study on preventing the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The fabrication was first reported in the journal Research USA. The study

was designed to evaluate the impact of " safe sex " counseling on black teens

in Baltimore housing developments. Congressional staffers said the study,

titled " Effectiveness of Standard Versus Embellished HIV Prevention, "

received more than $1 million in NIH funds in 1999. " It is terribly

troubling that federally funded research on a topic as sensitive and

important as HIV prevention for children, some as young as

13, would be intentionally manipulated, " said Rep. Mark Souder, Indiana

Republican and chairman of the House subcommittee on criminal justice, drug

policy and human resources. " If not caught, the lives of countless children

may have been put at risk by ineffective, perhaps dangerous, prevention

messages developed from this fabricated research. " Results of the Baltimore

study were published in January in the journal Pediatrics by a group of nine

researchers led by Ying Wu of West Virginia University. The study's

objective was to determine whether enhancing an existing AIDS prevention

program called Focus on Kids by adding " parental monitoring " would have an

effect on the children involved. Editors of Pediatrics said yesterday they

were investigating the reported fabrications. The study involved " 817 black

youths aged 12 to 16 years, " and found that youth whose families

participated in the enhanced Focus on Kids program showed " significantly

lower rates " for a variety of risk behaviors, including sex without condoms

and use of cigarettes and alcohol. The Focus on Kids program is a widely

used " safe sex " curriculum advertised by its publisher, ETR Associates, as

" proven effective. " " We would not comment on this, " said Constance Burr,

spokeswoman for the National Institute for Mental Health, the NIH division

which funded the study. Officials at the Office of Research Integrity had no

response to the report. In the past year, House Republicans have repeatedly

criticized NIH funding of sex research projects, including a $147,000 grant

to a Northwestern University professor who paid women to watch pornography

while measuring their sexual arousal. In July, the House rejected on a

212-210 vote a measure sponsored by Rep. Patrick J. Toomey, Pennsylvania

Republican, that would have eliminated federal funding for five sex studies.

But investigation of federally funded sex research has come under fire by

critics, including Rep. Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat. In October,

responding to a list of research grants questioned by some House

Republicans, Mr. Waxman wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy

G. Thompson: " I urge you in the strongest possible terms to denounce this

scientific McCarthyism. Imposing ideological shackles on this research would

be a serious public health mistake. " More recently, the New England Journal

of Medicine denounced congressional probes of research grants. Such scrutiny

risks turning sex research into a " political football, " warned the journal's

editor, Dr. Jeffrey Drazen. " Science should have oversight from Congress but

it ought not to be at the level of specific grants, " Dr. Drazen told United

Press Internationalthe Baltimore HIV study show the importance of

congressional oversight. " This scandal underscores the need for oversight of

all federal programs -- even NIH -- to ensure taxpayer dollars are not

misspent and science is not manipulated, " the congressman said.

 

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