Harvard Calls for Retraction of Dozens of Studies by Noted Cardiologist

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/health/piero-anversa-fraud-
retractions.html

Some 31 studies by Dr. Piero Anversa contain fabricated or falsified data,
officials concluded. Dr. Anversa popularized the idea of stem cell
treatment for damaged hearts.

A prominent cardiologist formerly at Harvard Medical School and Brigham
and Women’s Hospital in Boston fabricated or falsified data in 31
published studies that should be retracted, officials at the institutions
have concluded.

The cardiologist, Dr. Piero Anversa, produced research suggesting that
damaged heart muscle could be regenerated with stem cells, a type of cell
that can transform itself into a variety of other cells.

Although other laboratories could not reproduce his findings, the work led
to the formation of start-up companies to develop new treatments for heart
attacks and stroke, and inspired a clinical trial funded by the National
Institutes of Health.

“A couple of papers may be alarming, but 31 additional papers in question
is almost unheard-of,” said Benoit Bruneau, associate director of
cardiovascular research at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. “It
is a lab’s almost entire body of work, and therefore almost an entire
field of research, put into question.”

Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital began their review
of Dr. Anversa’s publications in January 2013. In April 2017, Brigham and
Women’s Hospital agreed to pay $10 million to the federal government to
settle accusations that Dr. Anversa submitted fraudulent data to get
research funding.

Officials at Harvard declined to comment on why it took so long to take
action on Dr. Anversa’s published work. Dr. Anversa could not be reached
for comment.

The cardiologist rocketed to fame in 2001 with a flashy paper claiming
that, contrary to scientific consensus, heart muscle could be regenerated.
If true, the research would have had enormous significance for patients
worldwide.

His method was to take stem cells from bone marrow and inject them into
the heart. As if by magic, he reported, the stem cells turned into heart
cells and repaired damage. The first studies were conducted in mice, but
the finding electrified researchers.

Companies were formed, including one headed by Dr. Anversa, based on the
claim that by injecting stem cells they could heal hearts that were
damaged by heart attacks.

Yet researchers failed to duplicate the work. In one paper, Dr. Irving
Weissman, co-director of Stanford University’s Institute of Stem Cell
Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and his colleagues concluded that bone
marrow cells injected in the heart remain bone marrow cells.

Another paper, by Dr. Charles Murry of the University of Washington in
Seattle and his colleagues, came to the same conclusion and said the
failures to replicate Dr. Anversa’s work “raise a cautionary note.”

But Dr. Anversa held firm. In effect, his response was “you guys don’t
know how to do it,” said Dr. Bruneau.

“Many labs said, ‘O.K., game on. We will keep trying to do it,’” he added.
But the list of failures grew.

Dr. Anversa claimed to have discovered that bone marrow cells are not
needed to repair heart muscle. The heart has its own stem cells, he
reported, which can be removed, multiplied in a petri dish, and injected
back into the heart to replace and repair damaged cells.

No one else could get those experiments to work, either, said Jeffery D.
Molkentin, a professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and
Cincinnati Children’s Heart Institute.

Dr. Molkentin found a way to label and trace the lineage of stem cells as
they morphed into other cells. That let him investigate whether any heart
cells were derived from these stem cells.

The answer was no, and in 2014 he published a paper that should have put
to rest all claims that stem cells could turn into mature working heart
cells and repopulate the heart.

A study published in the journal Circulation by Dr. Anversa was retracted
in 2014 after co-authors wrote to the journal saying the data in the paper
were not data they had generated. Dr. Anversa left Harvard and Brigham and
Women’s in 2015.

Despite the troubling questions that had been raised about the stem cell
work, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute began a clinical trial
of injected stem cells for patients with heart failure.

The study is still enrolling patients. And there are still companies
selling stem cell therapy for damaged hearts.

In the past few years, however, skeptical researchers moved on to other
prospects for heart treatment. “The field has backed off a lot,” Dr.
Molkentin said.

Some scientists wondered how a questionable line of research persisted for
so long. Maybe, Dr. Molkentin said, experts were just too timid to take a
stand.

But what about those companies selling stem cell treatments for the heart?

“People wanted to believe,” he said.



--
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.

Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp.

ObamaCare is a total 100% failure and no lie that can be put forth by its
supporters can dispute that.

Obama jobs, the result of ObamaCare. 12-15 working hours a week at minimum
wage, no benefits and the primary revenue stream for ObamaCare. It can't
be funded with money people don't have, yet liberals lie about how great
it is.

Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he was in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer
liberal democrat donors.