Anesthesiologist Fabricates 172 Papers

A researchers in Japan faked patient data on nearly 200 studies over the past 2 decades, according to an investigating committee.

Written byJef Akst

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Yoshitaka Fujii, a Japanese anesthesiologist, may have just set a new record in scientific misconduct. After an investigating committee organized by the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists concluded that he never saw the patients he claimed to see, or administered the medicine he claimed to treat them with, a total of 172 papers regarding those patients are up for retraction—a record number by a single author, according to ScienceInsider.

“It is as if someone sat at a desk and wrote a novel about a research idea,” the committee wrote in its report, posted in Japanese on the society's Web site last week (June 29).

Suspicion peaked this past March, when John Carlisle, a consultant anesthetist with the South Devon NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdome ...

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
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Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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