{"id":690412,"date":"2026-01-12T05:38:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T05:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/690412\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T05:38:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T05:38:14","slug":"amateur-sleuth-earns-2m-reward-for-exposing-research-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/690412\/","title":{"rendered":"Amateur sleuth earns \u00a32m reward for exposing research fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

An amateur scientific sleuth has earned a \u00a32 million reward after exposing the use of falsified data by one of America\u2019s leading cancer research institutions.<\/p>\n

Sholto David, 34, who lives in Oxford, spends much of his spare time trawling through peer-reviewed science, searching for errors and indications of fraud. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Record year for bad science with 10,000 studies retracted<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Two years ago he uncovered evidence that scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which is based in Boston and affiliated with Harvard University, had used manipulated data when applying for grants from the National Institutes of Health, the world\u2019s largest public funder of biomedical research.<\/p>\n

The institute has agreed to pay $15 million (\u00a312 million) to settle a lawsuit filed by David under the US False Claims Act. Under the agreement, David is due $2.63 million, almost \u00a32 million, a portion of which will go to his lawyer, and most of the settlement will be returned to the NIH.<\/p>\n

David, who has a doctorate in cell and molecular biology from Newcastle University, has not decided how he would use the money. Buying a house is an option, but he is also considering working full time on exposing errors and malpractice in scientific research, something he has so far done as a hobby. He spent three months last year cycling to China and is also keen to travel more. <\/p>\n

\"Sholto<\/p>\n

Sholto David has been recognised by Time magazine for his work<\/p>\n

TAYLOR HILL\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Since 2021 he has posted thousands of detailed comments online about scientific papers, highlighting dubious images, duplicated data and internal contradictions. The work has made him one of the most prolific independent critics of a lucrative scientific publishing industry.<\/p>\n

Asked how much faith the public should place in peer review, he said: \u201cIt is not really an effective process and we ask a lot of it. A lot of peer reviewers just aren\u2019t looking for fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI\u2019m still a scientist. I don\u2019t think all cancer research is wrong but there are more problems than most people would like to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Truth will out: honesty researcher \u2018used fake data\u2019<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The False Claims Act allows individuals to sue on behalf of the US government when public funds are alleged to have been obtained fraudulently. Whistleblowers can receive up to 30 per cent of any recovery.<\/p>\n

David, who works for a biotechnology company, set out his discoveries in a blog post published in 2024, noting what he said were repeated signs of data manipulation in studies by Dana-Farber researchers. Some of the problems involved animal research. In one example, images of mice said to have been taken at different stages of an experiment appeared to be identical.<\/p>\n

Other cases involved samples taken from humans via bone marrow aspiration, which involves inserting a needle into a bone to withdraw liquid marrow. \u201cBone marrow aspirations [are] a famously unpleasant procedure,\u201d David said. In one example, researchers identified images as coming from different patients. However, closer inspection suggested that they were the same image of the same bone marrow sample.<\/p>\n

David said that the issue went beyond technical errors to questions of ethical responsibility. \u201cIf you decided to volunteer for a bone marrow aspiration \u2026 it would be unfortunate to discover that those samples are then mishandled,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He was particularly concerned about flawed research being used to justify human and animal trials of experimental treatments. <\/p>\n

Soon after his blog post appeared, Dana-Farber asked journals to retract six of the 58 studies he had identified and to correct dozens more. The legal complaint listed 95 studies which it said reflected \u201ca pattern of fraud\u201d.<\/p>\n

David said that his interest in scientific deception began with him looking at the data on alternative medicine. \u201cYou\u2019ve got this kind of nonsense, like acupuncture, which seems like it\u2019s fake, but [advocates are] still publishing papers,\u201d he said. \u201cEventually I kind of came to realise that there are mistakes in all kinds of papers, not just alternative medicine. There are mistakes in mainstream cancer research, and not only mistakes but also fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sholto<\/p>\n

Sholto David has found many errors in images supporting research<\/p>\n

He initially focused on statistical errors but found problems involving images easier to communicate and harder for journal editors to ignore. <\/p>\n

\u201cNumerical understanding is very poor in biology,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if I have a problem with an image, most people can sort of see: these two pictures shouldn\u2019t be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States Attorney\u2019s Office said that Dana-Farber had admitted that its researchers \u201cmisrepresented data and images that resulted in misinformation about research being published in 14 scientific journal articles\u201d.<\/p>\n

Leah B Foley, the US attorney for Massachusetts, said: \u201cThere is no place in scientific research, particularly cancer research, for fraud, waste and abuse \u2026 Patients and the medical community rely on the important research conducted by institutions like Dana-Farber. It is critical that all research findings are accurately reported.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An amateur scientific sleuth has earned a \u00a32 million reward after exposing the use of falsified data by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-690412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115880519814766455","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}