UCLA researcher found guilty of misconduct

A researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles' Semel Institute for Neurosciences and Human Behavior faked interviews, tampered with data and urine samples, and stole money intended for study, according to a notice published this week in the Federal Register.According to the notice, James Lieber, "knowingly and intentionally falsified" data over six months during a 2005 study, which was funded in part with National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants.The study tracked female opiate addicts who had visited methadone clinics in Southern California during the late 1970s.Lieber, 46, fabricated 20 face-to-face interviews with study subjects, and provided false urine samples for those subjects, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Research Integrity (ORI), which investigated the events. Lieber, who was hired at UCLA in June 2005, also stole $5,180 in cash that was supposed to go to the study's participants as incentives and to cover...