{"id":218830,"date":"2024-10-08T14:51:47","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T18:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/?p=218830"},"modified":"2024-10-11T11:27:41","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T15:27:41","slug":"former-columbia-university-psychiatrist-committed-research-misconduct-says-federal-watchdog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/ethics\/former-columbia-university-psychiatrist-committed-research-misconduct-says-federal-watchdog\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Columbia University psychiatrist committed research misconduct, says federal watchdog"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bret Rutherford, whose research was halted following a suicide in a clinical trial, falsely reported participant eligibility, according to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":218831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":""},"categories":[152],"tags":[44,76,66,15,16],"acf":{"primary_tag":66,"doi_url":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.53053\/FYXT1567","custom_js_library":"","hero_type":"feat_image","hero_alt_image":null,"hero_youtube":"","hero_video":null,"hero_layout":"full","hero_caption":"False reports:<\/b> Bret Rutherford led trials for depression that included participants who violated the studies' inclusion and exclusion criteria.","hero_by":"","hero_credit":"","hero_bg_color":"none","authors":[107146,107310],"other_authors":"","related_title":"Explore more from The Transmitter<\/em>","related_hide":false,"related_filter":"latest","related_tag":null,"related_category":null,"related_custom":{"articles":null},"recommended_title":"Recommended reading","recommended_hide":false,"recommended_filter":"latest","recommended_tag":null,"recommended_category":null,"recommended_custom":{"articles":null},"comps":[{"acf_fc_layout":"copy_comp","copy":"A psychiatry researcher who received a warning letter<\/a> from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this year committed research misconduct, another federal watchdog found.\r\n\r\nBret Rutherford, formerly a research psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University, \u201cengaged in research misconduct by recklessly falsely reporting that all human research subjects met the inclusion\/exclusion criteria for late-life depression studies,\u201d according to a case summary<\/a> from the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) published today.\r\n\r\nAs The Transmitter<\/em> previously reported<\/a>, a suicide that occurred during one of Rutherford\u2019s trials in 2021 was followed by a suspension of his research a few months later. The U.S. Office of Human Research Protections subsequently halted<\/a> all federally funded research involving human participants at the institute in June 2023 and launched a review of its research practices.\r\n\r\nThe ORI\u2019s findings detail how in five published papers, Rutherford reported that 45 research participants were eligible for clinical studies, when in fact they were taking antidepressants or other medications that should have excluded them from participation. Rutherford also included 15 participants who took medications during a 28-day washout period before the trial when they were not supposed to be taking the medications, and he reported full washout periods for 8 participants who underwent shorter periods.\r\n\r\nThe false reporting affected \u201cthe reported clinical research methods and results\u201d of the five articles, the ORI\u2019s finding stated. Three of the articles have been retracted, and the other two have been corrected. The Transmitter<\/em> previously reported<\/a> on the corrections and two of the retractions, which reference protocol violations in a clinical trial of whether levodopa, a drug for Parkinson\u2019s disease, could help older adults with depression.\r\n\r\nThe third retraction, of a paper<\/a> about a levodopa trial published in Neuropsychopharmacology<\/em>, appeared in March. The retraction notice<\/a> stated that the authors had retracted the article \u201cbecause they have found deviations from the approved protocols supplying data for this analysis.\u201d\r\n\r\nRutherford agreed to a three-year ban on U.S. government funding, effective 27 September 2024, followed by a three-year period of supervision for any research conducted with funding from the U.S. Public Health Service, which includes the National Institutes of Health.\r\n\r\nRutherford did not respond to The Transmitter<\/em>\u2019s request for comment.\r\n\r\nThis article is a collaboration between\u00a0<\/i>The Transmitter\u00a0and\u00a0<\/i>Retraction Watch, a nonprofit news outlet that covers research misconduct and related issues. Ivan Oransky, editor-in-chief of <\/i>The Transmitter, is the volunteer co-founder of\u00a0<\/i>Retraction Watch.<\/i>\r\n\r\nIf you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, help is available. Here is a <\/em>worldwide directory of resources and hotlines<\/em><\/a> that you can call for support. <\/em>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"newsletter","title":"Sign up for our weekly newsletter.","subtitle":"Catch up on what you may have missed from our recent coverage.","bg_image":200913,"groups":[{"group":"4","name":"","hide_checkbox":true}],"linktext":"","linkurl":""}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218830"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218971,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218830\/revisions\/218971"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor\/107310"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor\/107146"}],"acf:term":[{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"post_tag","href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/66"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetransmitter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}