Cancer researcher fired after false data uncovered

A researcher from one of South Africa's most prestigious medical schools has been fired after admitting that he falsified cancer research data. Dr. Werner Bezwoda of Witwatersrand University had reported to the American Society of Clinical Oncology last year on the success of the controversial technique of using high-dose chemotherapy followed by a bone-marrow transplant to treat cancer.

He had conducted clinical trials involving 154 South African women with "high-risk" breast cancer and reported an increased survival rate and lower relapse rate among women who received higher doses of chemotherapy. "The drugs Bezwoda gave women in the control group - who were supposed to be on standard dose treatment - were not the same as he cited in his report," the South African Medical Journal reports (2000;90[4]:333-4). "He tested the high-dose patients against a group he claimed was on the conventional regimen, but were in fact on an entirely different experimental group of drugs."

The SAMJ reports that his presentation at the American conference "literally turned accepted wisdom on its head and contradicted the findings of all other research presenters." This marked the first time the society has had to retract a paper in its 35-year history.

Bezwoda, who was fired from his job as head of the university's departments of hematology and clinical oncology, apologized for his "serious breach of scientific honesty and integrity." He said he was motivated by a "foolish desire to make the presentation more acceptable." Since his dishonesty was discovered, says the SAMJ, Aetna/US Healthcare, the largest insurer in the US, has announced that it will no longer pay for combined high-dose chemotherapy and bone-marrow transplant treatments.