Media Coverage About SAEN Stop Animal Exploitation Now

Scientist Leaves UPenn In Disgrace Over Claims He Faked Animal Experimentation Results

ACTION ALERT:

Contact:

Alexander Runko, Ph.D.
Division of Investigative Oversight
Office of Research Integrity
Via email: [email protected] [email protected]

Dr. Runko,

Fraudulent research must not be tolerated. You must convict William Armstead, formerly of the University of Pennsylvania, of Research Misconduct for the five fraudulent publications, which were retracted because "it was discovered that the data in the article could not be substantiated by the source data.”

This is not anything that even roughly resembles science; it is nothing but fraud. Armstead must be convicted of Research Misconduct, and he must receive the maximum penalty.

 

Scientist Leaves UPenn In Disgrace Over Claims He Faked Animal Experimentation Results

From Michael Morgan, NYDailyPaper.com, September 7, 2022

Professor William M. Armstead has left UPenn amid allegations of research misconduct

A research professor has left the University of Pennsylvania under a cloud after five of his studies into inflicting traumatic brain injury in young pigs were withdrawn due to “substantive questions” about the validity of their findings.

William M. Armstead “is no longer a faculty member at Penn, has closed his lab and ended his animal research activities,” the university told the university. Philadelphia Inquirer Tuesday in a statement.

It follows mounting controversy and a reported federal investigation into Armstead’s research, which involved drilling the skulls of young pigs and hammering their brains with fluid-filled plungers to study their injuries and test various treatments.

The scandal boiled last month when the medical journal Pediatric Research issued a retraction for one of Armstead’s 2017 articles, the fifth such retraction related to his brain injury research.
The article’s retraction notice reads: “The author has withdrawn this article. After publication it turned out that the data in the article could not be substantiated with the source data.’

Last month, the medical journal Pediatric Research published a retraction for one of Armstead’s 2017 articles, the fifth retraction related to his brain injury research.

In recent months, one article in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine and three in the Journal of Neurotrauma were also withdrawn.

All five retracted articles were originally published between 2016 and 2019, and some were cited repeatedly by other researchers.

The retraction notices state that the articles were retracted at Armstead’s request, but note the author’s lack of details about the potential issues with the investigation.

Typical is a report from the Journal of Neurotrauma, stating that Armstead requested a full retraction because “substantive questions have been raised about the findings, presentation and conclusions reported in the paper that could not be answered with available source data.”

The magazine’s editors added that they had contacted Armstead three times for additional information about the issues with his study, but had received no response.

Armstead and a spokesperson for UPenn did not respond to requests for comment from DailyMail.com Tuesday night.

UPenn told the researcher in a statement: “When a journal informed us of inconsistencies in the data provided by Dr. Armstead, we have reviewed the concerns in accordance with our process and reported our findings to all appropriate authorities.

Armstead’s research involved drilling into the skulls of young pigs and beating their brains with fluid-filled pistons to test various treatments for traumatic brain injury ‘Dr. Armstead is no longer a faculty member at Penn, has closed his lab and ended his animal research activities,” the statement said.

It is unclear when Armstead left UPenn. As of June, the school’s website said he “may no longer be affiliated” with the university’s Perelman School of Medicine.

The university website currently lists him as “retired.”

After the withdrawal of Armstead’s latest study, which was funded in part by federal grants, the federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) opened an investigation into possible scientific misconduct, according to the guard.

Such assessments can cover a range of misconduct, including instances of plagiarism, forgery or outright fabrication in conducting research.

The scientific watchdog publication Withdrawal watch helped draw attention to the wave of retractions from Armstead’s investigation.

“Subjecting baby pigs to brain damage (before they are killed) may have some justification in research, if subjected to proper supervision,” the outlet noted in its latest article.

The Journal of Neurotrauma has issued retraction notices for three of Armstead’s articles, including the one seen above.

“Having to scrap the project because someone decided fabricating the data was a good idea seems much less justified,” it added.

The animal rights group Stop animal exploitation now (SAEN) has also repeatedly and publicly called for a federal investigation into the matter.

According to the group, the National Institutes of Health funded at least some of Armstead’s experiments on piglets with nearly $2 million in grant money.

SAEN described Armstead’s research as “horrific multimillion-dollar tax-funded experiments.”

It said the study had “caused traumatic head injuries in dozens of newborn piglets.”

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