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By Richard Saltus
A visiting Japanese scientist working
at the National Cancer Institute has admitted that he rigged
part of a vaccine research project and fabricated data,
his coauthors say in a printed retraction of
a report on the project.
The coauthors said they were unaware
that the lead author, Tatsumi Arichi, had rigged the experiment
by ''spiking''
a cell fluid with quantities of a virus to make it seem
that the virus had grown in the cells. His coauthors called
it a ''serious problem.
''The original paper describing the
vaccine work appeared in the Jan. 4, 2000, issue of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That paper
said that a DNA vaccine being tested in mice in the experiment
was a ''potential candidate'' for a vaccine to prevent hepatitis
C, which affects about 4 million Americans.
In the wake
of that paper, scientists tried repeatedly to duplicate
the results, but were unable to do so.
The retraction appeared this week on
the journal's Web site, and will be published in the May
8 edition of the publication. Such retractions are occurring
more frequently, said an official of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science.
Boston
Globe Newspaper 5/3/2001 page 4
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