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More on the Potti scandal
Topic Started: Aug 11 2010, 08:56 AM (8,320 Views)
MikeZPU

Quote:
 
Key point: The administration seems to be telling us that lying on your resume -- one version presented to Duke when he was hired, seven other versions sent to grant-makers like the federal government and American Cancer Society -- is not sufficient to get fired.

Even when you faked a Rhodes Scholarship, which incredibly the Chronicle story does not mention.


FactChecker is absolutely right: this statement by Duke clearly indicates that putting
false credentials on your vita in order to land a faculty position at Duke, and to get grants
from the Federal Government, is BELOW the bar for termination at Duke.

Since FactChecker points out that Dr. Potti does NOT have tenure, this is all the more amazing,
spectacularly amazing.

Doesn't this tell potential Duke faculty members, you might as well add false credentials to your
vita to increase your chances of landing a faculty position at Duke, because once you have the position,
you won't lose it, if it is found out that you lied about those credentials on your vita.


Edited by MikeZPU, Aug 28 2010, 10:28 AM.
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MikeZPU
Aug 27 2010, 11:21 PM
Quote:
 
Key point: The administration seems to be telling us that lying on your resume -- one version presented to Duke when he was hired, seven other versions sent to grant-makers like the federal government and American Cancer Society -- is not sufficient to get fired.

Even when you faked a Rhodes Scholarship, which incredibly the Chronicle story does not mention.


FactChecker is absolutely right: this statement by Duke clearly indicates that putting
false credentials on your vita in order to land a faculty position at Duke and to get grants
from the Federal Government is BELOW the bar for termination at Duke.

Since FactChecker points out that Dr. Potti does NOT have tenure, this is all the more amazing,
spectacularly amazing.

Doesn't this tell potential Duke faculty members, you might as well add false credentials to your
vita to increase your chances of landing a faculty position at Duke, because once you have the position,
you won't lose it when it is found out that you lied about those credentials on your vita.


Endlessly "forthcoming" publications from the Gang of 88 look pretty admirable in the new light.
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MikeZPU

Payback
Aug 27 2010, 11:35 PM
MikeZPU
Aug 27 2010, 11:21 PM
Quote:
 
Key point: The administration seems to be telling us that lying on your resume -- one version presented to Duke when he was hired, seven other versions sent to grant-makers like the federal government and American Cancer Society -- is not sufficient to get fired.

Even when you faked a Rhodes Scholarship, which incredibly the Chronicle story does not mention.


FactChecker is absolutely right: this statement by Duke clearly indicates that putting
false credentials on your vita in order to land a faculty position at Duke, and to get grants
from the Federal Government, is BELOW the bar for termination at Duke.

Since FactChecker points out that Dr. Potti does NOT have tenure, this is all the more amazing,
spectacularly amazing.

Doesn't this tell potential Duke faculty members, you might as well add false credentials to your
vita to increase your chances of landing a faculty position at Duke, because once you have the position
you won't lose it, if it is found out that you lied about those credentials on your vita.


Endlessly "forthcoming" publications from the Gang of 88 look pretty admirable in the new light.
Excellent point! (Humorously put!)
Edited by MikeZPU, Aug 28 2010, 10:29 AM.
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Q.A.
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Q.A.
Surely Potti is not welcome within the organized medical staff of Duke University Hospital; wouldn’t most of them want him to just go-away, preferably to his distant homeland?

A not uncommon ploy for medical staffs to get rid of physicians such as Potti, relies on a Joint Commission policy limiting appointment to a hospital medical staff to two years, by which time the physician must be submitted to a reappointment procedure.

Potti easily fulfils the criteria for non-reappointment to the Duke University Hospital medical staff.

Potti may be below the bar for faculty termination at Duke, but surely not for medical staff non-reappointment?

If he were not reappointed, he would be constructively finished for a hospital physician appointment in the U.S.

Typically, the threat of non-reappointment may persuade the physician to resign for “personal” reasons before it happens.

Sometimes the threatened physician feels so cornered that he/she “Dukes"-it-out with legal action.

Another ploy is abolishment of the physician’s employment-slot, for which a plausible economic justification could be cooked-up; that too may lead to legal action.

In the present climate (Lax-frame, and Potti scandals)“Duke” does not seem to fear mere embroilment in legal disputes; the system seems to be ignoring most of them, so far.
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Baldo
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Time to bring out the old definition again

It would be well if character and reputations were used distinctively. In truth, character is what a person is ; reputation what he is supposed to be. Character is in himself, reputation is in the mind of others. Character is injured by temptations; and by wrong doing.; reputation, by slanders and libels. Character endures throughout defamation in every form. But perishes when there is a voluntary transgression; reputation may last through numerous transgressions, but be destroyed by a single, and even an unfounded, accusation or aspersion.

From the 1921 Edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary


Brodhead is the same man who knew the guys were innocent yet sacrifice them to the bigotry coming from the John Hope Franklin Center.

Brodhead is who he is. When a crisis occurs he succumbs to old habits.

Unfortunately for Brodhead his reputation is starting to be viewed as his real character
Edited by Baldo, Aug 28 2010, 01:39 PM.
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MikeZPU

Do you think Brodhead has whined to Potti: "Look at the position you've put me in" ??
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chatham
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So I was delivering some plants I grew for a friend who lives in Durham today. I used to work with this guy at Duke and at a biopharmaceutical company that was born out of Duke many years ago. So my friend made a lot of money as the founder of this company. When he decided to retire from science he and his wife made a donation to Duke for an annual award to a scientist doing really great research at the forefront of scientific discovery in the area of cancer research.

I knew he has a lot of interest at what is happening at Duke especially in the Medical Center since his appointment back when was in the Medical Center. And eventually it was a pretty high up appointment. I asked him what he thought about the Potti scandal. He told me that Potti received the award a year or so back the he (my friend) set up. He told me he has met Potti and that Potti is very smart. I immediately come back with the comment that he was smart enough to fake his CV and there are lots of questions about his research. I asked him how could someone fake their CV and no one at Duke know? He told me he could not understand how brodhead could say what he did the other day about how to vet people who apply for positions at Duke (or anywhere). I just started talking about how easy it is to vet a person who claims a Rhodes. Pick up a phone, say hello and then ask did so and so get a Rhodes? Its like a 3 minute process? Anyway.

My friend said that he will probably get fired (his opinion only) since he faked his CV. I asked him if he was going to take back the award he received from him and his wife. lol lol lol. He mumbled something I could not understand lol I just let it go at that point.

I guess the issue I am pointing out here is that Potti is considered to be extremely bright and that is why english teachers may be attracted to him. I will admit that my friend is not very good at evaluating individual personalities. One would think they would ask the right questions during interviews just like they ask the right questions when doing science at the bench. Maybe not at Duke anymore.

IMO, if Duke is to survive, brodhead needs to go. I believe a lot more people are wiling to think the same. The problem is getting them to do something.
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MikeZPU
Aug 28 2010, 03:02 PM
Do you think Brodhead has whined to Potti: "Look at the position you've put me in" ??
Brodhead may well have shed a few more hot tears of self-pity over Potti, but there's a big difference between the Potti case and the Mangum hoax/frame.

Brodhead understands the appeal of academic honors and is impressed even by a false claim to have held a Rhodes Scholarship. There are all sorts of explanations for claiming a Rhodes, intermediate and otherwise. Besides, he knows now, in the last three years, what it is to have credit for being something that he really isn't, notably "a Melville scholar" or "a Hawthorne scholar." That makes for a tight fellowly bond.

Furthermore, Potti is not, I assume, a tall stalwart muscular handsome Caucasian male who plays helmeted sports and is also highly intelligent. He may well be highly intelligent, enough so to know a Rhodes is nice to add to your CV. But I will bet that he is not muscular and athletic and handsome in a Caucasian way and ALSO highly intelligent. Brodhead learned with Van de Velde that he could get away with trying to destroy handsome muscular intelligent young men and was sure he could do it better as President of a university rather than just as Dean.

So you have a kind of fellowship of two guys out of their league, commiserating with each other? At least Brodhead understands the longing to get credit for things you really did not achieve although people think you did.

Brodhead may be thinking that the Potti scandal may be big, after all. People may die from the cancer fraud. But does Brodhead think now about the damage he has done to human lives all by himself?
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sceptical

Here are some comments from a poster in the Chronicle:

Quote:
 
7:52 PM
August 29, 2010

noblesse d'epee

In his handling of the Potti mess, among other controversies, Richard Brodhead has arguably exhibited malfeasance. Moreover, his assertion that there may exist an "intermediate explanation" for Potti's fraudulent claim of being a Rhodes Scholar is arguably an exhibition of idiocy. It is therefore my right, as both a Chronicle reader and as a Duke alumnus, to offer my considered opinion that Brodhead is a malfeasant idiot. As you well know, Richard Brodhead is, by all legal standards, a public figure. Most commentary concerning him, however offensive you may find it, is protected speech. Moreover, I care not at all about "message board policies." If members of the Chronicle's editorial board are indeed independent, neither should they.


Quote:
 
.8:13 PM
August 29, 2010

noblesse d'epee

A final thought . . . history will not be kind to Brodhead, nor to anyone else whose action/inaction prevents this egregious scandal from being openly investigated and resolved. Cancer patients are being treated based upon Potti's fraudulent "science," paid for by grants obtained with his fraudulent academic honors. If a demand for transparency and justice in this case is inconsistent with "chivalrous behavior," then we live in a world devoid of decency. The Trustees should suck it up and do the right thing.
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noblesse d'epee

In his handling of the Potti mess, among other controversies, Richard Brodhead has arguably exhibited malfeasance. Moreover, his assertion that there may exist an "intermediate explanation" for Potti's fraudulent claim of being a Rhodes Scholar is arguably an exhibition of idiocy. It is therefore my right, as both a Chronicle reader and as a Duke alumnus, to offer my considered opinion that Brodhead is a malfeasant idiot. As you well know, Richard Brodhead is, by all legal standards, a public figure. Most commentary concerning him, however offensive you may find it, is protected speech.


My comment:
When someone cautioned that Brodhead could sue me for what I was revealing, a lawyer gave advice: Brodhead is a public figure; truth is a defense; and opinion is protected. People have been very careful in what they say. When I say that Brodhead lied in the New York Times, I say that Brodhead lied. His only defense would be that he was incompetent and did not know what he was saying. Then maybe I would get a patented Brodhead non-apology apology or some intermediate explanation.
Edited by Payback, Aug 30 2010, 10:26 AM.
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MikeZPU

Payback
Aug 30 2010, 10:04 AM
My comment:
When someone cautioned that Brodhead could sue me for what I was revealing, a lawyer gave advice: Brodhead is a public figure; truth is a defense; and opinion is protected. People have been very careful in what they say. When I say that Brodhead lied in the New York Times, I say that Brodhead lied. His only defense would be that he was incompetent and did not know what he was saying. Then maybe I would get a patented Brodhead non-apology apology or some intermediate explanation.
Haha :roflmao:
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sceptical

More from Fact Checker in the Chronicle comments section:

Quote:
 
6:10 AM
August 30, 2010

Fact Checker
✔Fact Checker here.

Let's start by comparing President Brodhead's statement to the Herald-Sun editorial board ten days ago on Duke's hiring process with the statement furnished by Mr Schoenfeld, quoted in today's Chronicle.

✔✔✔✔✔
Brodhead: "The university will in general continue to accept credentials on their face as presented by the people who present them... We're not going to start running background checks and police checks on everybody... You can't reasonably do that, nor is there a need to."

✔✔✔✔✔
Schoenfeld: “In terms of faculty, [hiring] is a very thorough and rigourous process and involves extensive checking of references, conversations with people who worked with faculty members and reviewing work they do.”

Do you believe Brodhead? Do you believe Schoenfeld? Or do you believe neither? Do these people think that we don't remember what they say one day to the next? Boy am I angry.

This is indicative of the way that the Brodhead administration is turning its handling of the Potti mess into a crisis of confidence, a crisis as big as the one involving Potti himself.

✔✔✔✔✔
Now let's move on to the pledge that the investigation of Potti's resume would be done with "transparency." Pledge after pledge, "transparency." Here is what it yielded:

A) Dancing figures in charge of the investigation. The press release says the investigation was led by Lange from the start. From the start. That does not seem to be correct. Earlier Dr Cuffe, vice dean of the medical school was the point man. He burped a few words for the news media several times, no mention of Lange. There was a conflict of interest in Cuffe's doing this; not Dr. Cuffe's conflict, but Duke's. Rather than getting into intricate details on that now, Loyal Readers please wait for the comprehensive conflict of interest report that FC is preparing. Soon. Cuffe just disappeared off the radar.

B) Led by Lange, but whom was he leading? We have one or more anonymous administrators, and maybe other people, sitting in judgment. They won't tell us.

C) We do not know what rules they operated under. If there was a panel, was there a vote by majority, super majority or did it have to be unanimous. Did the panel make a decision, or did it make a recommendation? The investigation was led by Lange, but who made the decisions, as leading the probe does not necessarily mean making the decision. A Deputy Fact Checker asked all this and there were no answers.

D) We have a decision that unspecified parts of Potti's resumes are lies, and can't find out which parts. Transparency!! The press release used the words "issues of substantial concern." That means LIES.

E) Schoenfeld said Potti is receiving "corresponding sanction." In other words, they won't tell us what the penalty is either. We conclude Potti is still employed, since he is still on the payroll, raising the question of what in hell a Duke faculty member must do to get canned.

F) As for the press release itself. Using the oldest trick in the PR handbook, Schoenfeld waited until late Friday afternoon to issue it, at a time when he figured reporters and editors were in weekend mode and wouldn't ask any pesky questions. Mr. Schoenfeld, be advised you did not fool Fact Checker.

G) Anyone wanting to read the press release, please be advised that Duke did not put it on its home page. It did not put it on the home page of the PR department. There is a box on the PR home page that lists six of the most important recent news releases; it is not there either. There is very faint type that says "more releases" and if you click on that, and then scroll down, you will find an "update." Next time you see a jury verdict in a criminal trial in the newspaper, just regard it as an update. Mr. Schoenfeld, update is a rather obfuscating way of saying we caught the dude red-handed.

Transparency!!

✔It is now appropriate to tell you more about Mr. Brodhead's interview with the Herald Sun. He cautioned against making judgments on Potti, saying some allegations will be true, some will be false, and then there will be "intermediate explanations."

You still have not seen those words in a Chronicle news story, only FC posts! Intermediate explanations, so much for the honor code!! I wonder if any of the decisions that Lange made in his report on Potti's credentials involved "intermediate explanations."

✔✔✔✔✔
Now, Chronicle, you have to be very careful with the words "external" and "internal" investigations. Potti embraces four investigations

✔A) Last winter Duke held an in-house inquiry into Potti's science and cleared him. Below you will see that another inquiry into Potti's science is also referred to as an external investigation.

Loyal Readers know FC took the wraps off off last winter's report that Duke refused to release, naming names that Duke would not give us. Providing quotes. Remember these quotes, I shall return to them in a minute.

✔B) Duke began an "internal" investigation into Potti's credentials. That's what today's Chronicle report is about.

✔C) Duke is trying to land an august body with impeccable credentials for an "external" investigation into Potti's science. Trust me: if you think the resume was bad, the science is going to be worse. Worse. As a researcher at the renowned M D Anderson Cancer Center, U of Texas put it upon discovering that nothing added up, "there won't be a charitable explanation," meaning no accident, no error, just fraud.

The final external report will conflict directly with the quotes in A) above, and provide deep deep embarrassment to this university. Mark my words. Nothing like you have seen before. Pledging transparency, Chancellor Dzau says he won't tell us who may do this external investigation.

✔✔✔✔D) Schoenfeld's PR handout late Friday afternoon made reference for the first time to a "faculty misconduct" investigation, claiming Duke immediately began it. One problem: in outlining in a comprehensive way Duke's response to Potti in an e-mail to the medical faculty on August 26, one that was later made available to all Duke employees but no one else, Dzau did not refer to this at all. I can assure you of only one thing in the "faculty misconduct" investigation: it will be fully transparent.

✔As for the basic Chronicle report, two observations:

A) You could have mentioned in your list three different dates for Potti's medical degree in India. Some Loyal Readers have been questioning if his training is the equivalent of an MD as we know it in the US. The India medical school does not respond to FC.

B) You could have mentioned his applying to the U of North Dakota to be an intern and resident, but never mentioning he was then doing that precise work at a hospital in India.

✔Also with reference to the Chronicle, at least, welcome to the club of those of us who have been on this all along. Today's report merely scratches the surface, and Loyal Readers await far more.

✔✔✔✔✔
One of the most urgent angles involves 109 cancer patients -- most with breast cancer, some with lung cancer. While Duke suspended NEW enrollments in Dr Potti's clinical trials... STOP RIGHT THERE. I will no longer refer to these things by the obfuscating words clinical trials. These are experiments with human beings!!!!

While Duke suspended NEW enrollments, 109 people who had previously been enrolled in Potti's human experiments were allowed to remain. These were 109 desperately ill people, coming to Duke for help, relying on its reputation, giving up other options to treat their cancer. They got Potti for their doctor and bunk for their medicine.

Has Duke even had the decency to keep them updated?

Chronicle please put this on the top of your agenda as lives hang in the balance.

If ANYONE has ANY CONFIDENCE whatsoever in Duke's many investigations of Potti, you can have my tickets in Cameron to the Carolina game!

✔Thanks for reading.
Email Duke.Fact.Checker@gmail.com
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Baldo
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When will the BOT fire his butt?

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Payback
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Baldo
Aug 30 2010, 09:53 PM
When will the BOT fire his butt?

The Potti scandal does not just have legs, it has wings, despite all the obfuscation.
Fact Checker: :bd: :bd: :bd: :bd: :bd: :bd: :bd: :bd: :bd: :bd: :bd: :bd:
Edited by Payback, Aug 31 2010, 12:09 AM.
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Quasimodo

http://www.dukechronicle.com/node/152510/talk

✔✔Fact Checker here.

This article is fine. Fact Checker wants to add some perspective.

Duke University had to be backed into a corner and hammered over the head to institute the first review of Potti last winter. Every Dukie is indebted to the scientists at MD Anderson for their long, intrepid fight challenging Duke. Our honesty, our integrity is at stake.

The first review was internal -- though three outside consultants were hired because of very technical scientific issues. Here's an update: those consultants -- which the Chronicle's sources say supported Potti -- have now explained that Duke limited their inquiry to two questions while others were on the table. They said Duke took their findings and warped them in such a way as to emphasize what supported Potti, and to ignore what challenged him.

This internal review -- which Duke won't let you read, although Fact Checker has read it -- did not involve Potti alone -- but named three people. That's important because Potti is bearing the brunt of this because of his credentials "issues," as Duke likes to say, or lies as Fact Checker reports. The news media can more easily understand a faked Rhodes Scholarship -- than the intricacies of cancer research.

One of the others involved is above Potti in the pecking order at the University: Dr Joseph Nevins, Barbara Levine University Professor of Breast Cancer Genomics and Director of Duke's Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy. A 2007 Ph.D. recipient was also involved, William T Barry.

Deans Cuffe and Kornbluth are quoted in the Chronicle article. Their statements must be viewed in this context: having signed off on the first Potti report with its rosy conclusions about his research, they would be very very shaken professionally and embarrassed personally if the new external review proves his science is a fraud. They have much at stake.

Neither should be speaking at this time for Duke University. Period.

✔Duke did not just happen to become interested in a second science review -- this time to be fully conducted externally, still being arranged. Duke had to be badgered:

-- taking more wilting fire from brave scientists at M D Anderson who stood up to Duke's first report.

-- Next came 15 European co-authors of a Potti publication in a medical journals, who retracted their work.

-- Next came the distinguished British journal Lancet Cancer which published an un-heard of alert about one of its Potti articles, saying it was investigating whether to retract it.

-- And lastly, the "July 19 letter of concern signed by 33 other statisticians" spoken of so benignly in the Chronicle just happened to be from a Who's Who of the world's genome researchers -- specifically condemning the use of Potti science on patients who had enrolled in his human experiments before Duke's

Duke did NOTHING in response to all this. It wasn't until the scandal over Potti's resume broke in The Cancer Letter, that our administrators caved.

Please, let's stop using the words "clinical trials." These are experiments on human beings. Desperately ill people who came to Duke for help, and what they got is Potti as their doctor and fraud as their medicine.

With the authority that FC just outlined all aligned against Potti, there are substantial questions of how he slipped through the cracks, or worse, how come his science received any support at all on this campus. Loyal Readers, make no mistake about it: Brodhead, Dzau, Cuffe and Kornbluth among others are also on trial. As the Cancer Letter has stated, this was once about bum science, it is now also about administrators who enabled it.

✔Loyal Dukies, Fact Checker would also like to point out two conflicts of interest, particularly with respect to Cuffe and Kornbluth.

Both were appointed by the Dean of the Medical School Nancy Andrews after she arrived from Harvard 3 years ago. They still report to her.

But Andrews husband, Bernard Mathey-Prevot, Ph.D., a noted cancer researcher who left the renowned Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston to accompany his wife, now works at Duke. He co-authored a major medical journal article with Potti and Nevins, and is a candidate to face review himself as this scandal metathesizes.

We cannot have critical roles in these investigations played by people who are beholden to the Medical Dean, when her husband is in the spotlight. Period. Such a conflict shakes our faith.

There's more. Potti and Duke stand to make millions if his discovery proves to be honest. $$$$ Potti basically has created a screening test using DNA and RNA which will reveal -- if it works -- precisely how to treat a breast or lung tumor; Duke plans to license this -- with as many as 700,000 people a year taking the test and chocking over fees that include handsome royalties.

(The university has a similar stake in the unrelated enzyme work of another scientist under review, Homme Hellinga, James B Duke Professor of Biochemistry)

While Chancellor Dzau announced in late July that Duke is divesting itself from Potti's discoveries -- selling its stake in other words -- this is quite like locking the barn door after the horse galloped away.

Fact Checker is working on a comprehensive conflict of interest report on these scandals.

No I am not done yet. Now, transparency.

✔Fact Checker doesn't know what President Brodhead, Chancellor Dzau, Provost Lange and Vice President for PR Schoenfeld were doing at 7:30 last Thursday evening. But I hope they watched the live broadcast of a news conference on the Carolina campus, courtesy of the WRAL-TV website.

And I hoped the stark contrast with their own handling of the Potti scandal occurred to them.


You could see the pain in the faces of UNC's football coach, their athletic director, their chancellor. Bad enough that they have been coping with an explosive situation involving agents tampering with players, probably two players, now they face academic fraud that apparently embraces as many as 12 more. Plus one of 25 team tutors.

The athletic director swallowed and hesitated and looked like he might begin to tear when he answered a question by saying "We are looking into improprieties that existed outside the classroom."

"Outside the classroom." Was that just his way of expressing academic fraud, or did he mean sex, which is what these words have meant before? No elaboration.

The coach looked down and pursed his lips when he confirmed the unidentified female tutor had also been hired by his family to help his son Drew. "To be honest with you, I think we're really surprised and possibly disappointed, but there has been no revelation as to exactly the extent or what has actually transpired."

The chancellor: "Our hope is that the scope of this is limited.”

The lesson for Brodhead and his team is clear.

Officials at the University of North Carolina faced a crisis. They immediately reported what they knew to the NCAA and sought permission to speak out.

The NCAA responded yes, and instructed that Trustees be informed forthwith.

UNC's officials stood on their campus, affirmed Carolina's historical values, and pledged their personal integrity to the process of rooting out cheating no matter how many starters tumbled from a team ranked 18 in the AP pre-season poll. You could see the strength of their determination.

The UNC officials listed three names: Broome, Evans, Blanchard to head an investigation.

Yes they named the investigators, opening the door rather than sealing it like Brodhead and his team. As best the officials were able, they gave us a timetable. They took questions from reporters, many questions.

And the impact was clear: even Fact Checker as a skeptical, cynical Dukie has confidence in the investigation. Its transparency, the accountability of leaders in Chapel Hill. The coach, the athletic director, the chancellor, already tall, grew in stature. Fact Checker trusts the job they will do.

Loyal Readers, compare all this, please, with Brodhead, Dzau, Lange and Schoenfeld in the Potti scandal.

To Fact Checker's knowledge, and that is considerable, our President, our Chancellor, our Provost, our mouthpiece have never stood publicly before us, taken questions, and given us the kind of assurance only eye-to-eye contact can.

Brodhead did write a cursory reply to the Chronicle when it e-mailed him as the scandal first broke -- before we knew any of its dimensions.

And as Brodhead sat down behind closed doors with the editors at the Herald-Sun ten days ago for a routine interview about the coming school year, he was asked about the scandal. His answer was an embarrassment.

He said we should withhold judgment, for some things are true, some are false, and then there is an "intermediate explanation." So much for the honor code.

Fellow Dukies, those are the mushy words of an English professor, not a mighty declaration of principle that we need from the leader of a world-class university.

✔Aside from Fact Checker posts, those are words you have never seen in the Chronicle. "Intermediate explanation." scandal.

There are three current investigations. One is done, the credentails. Dzau, Lange pledged transparency. We got a faceless committee -- no one knows who sat on it -- behind doors, operating with unknown procedures, finding lies in the resume that are not specified, and then they tell us there are sanctions for now, but they won't tell us what!!!

✔Dzau, normally far more responsive to inquiries than Brodhead, has also circled his wagons. He knows the scandal has spread beyond Potti's fake Rhodes Scholarship, beyond one of his stars in the emerging field of translational medicine, beyond shaky, shifty science from at least three Duke researchers. In plain English, his job is on the line.

Dzau hears the murmurs about his own distractions as a director of four major corporations, monthly meetings in distant cities, with a $1 million a year in fees. Not to mention his being scientific adviser to other major corporations.

And Dzau must realize now that it was a grievous mistake to assign Dean Sandy Williams, since departed for a lab in San Francisco, to spend half-time at Duke Medical School and half-time at our money-making medical school venture in Singapore. A mole tells FC that Williams fought this.

✔And Schoenfeld.

Unlike the PR man at UNC who welcomed questions, he shamefully does not even acknowledge e-mail, right in the face of Dzau and the Provost who have personally pledged "transparency."
I repeat, making mockery of the personal pledge of Dzau and Lange, as well as the institutional commitment to transparency.

Schoenfeld simply ignores people who do not warble his tune. Anyone who challenges Brodhead is out, the flow of information to them throttled.

Schoenfeld has even gone mum on questions unrelated to Potti. For example an explanation of what it means for a faculty member to be placed on "administrative leave," which is
double-talk for being suspended. With pay.

✔ Finally, I want to return to the human element: While Duke has stopped new patients from being recruited for the HUMAN EXPERIMENTS that Potti was conducting, 109 people were enrolled earlier and are still receiving treatment for breast and lung cancer according to Potti protocols. The Chronicle has now mentioned them, buried in today's article, for the first time.

109 people who came to this university in desperation, who were given false hope based upon faked credentials and soon to be revealed fraudulent research, who gave up the option of other therapies, who are now confronted with science that everyone -- everyone -- outside the boundaries of the Duke campus is saying is bunk. And many people inside too.

Bunk.

These cancer patients relied on Duke, its reputation, its integrity, its honor. What happened to them should sear the conscience of every Dukie. Where is the outrage!

Mr. Brodhead, has you or Dzau personally gone to these patients or have your lawyers muzzled you lest you give away a point or two of their malpractice defense, leaving the patients to figure it out for themselves?

Mr. Brodhead, Dr Dzau have you had outside doctors examine the patients to see if they have any options left? Today we are only given vague assurances in the Chronicle concluding that these people should continue with their bogus Potti treatments.

Remember please that the Who's Who in genome science said just the opposite.

✔And so late last Friday, after the focus became the weekend getaway, Duke employed the cheapest trick in PR and announced there were "substantial" "issues" with Potti's resume.

Yes a press release. In Schoenfeld's name, which seemed odd since it was Lange's investigation. Anyone who could reach Schoenfeld was told no questions would be answred.

The Chronicle did sneak a question in to Lange. Since he found "issues of substantial concern," what did this say for Duke's process of vetting its employees?

Ha. You have a better chance of rolling a snowball thru hell than getting an answer out of Lange.

Did Duke put this press release on its home page. No. Did Duke put it on the home page of its PR office. No.

The PR page has a box displaying six headlines on news releases. Was it there? No. If you were fortunate enough to click the tiny words "more releases," that's where you found the Potti announcement buried.

Yes it was listed as an "update," not a bombshell.

Remember please, Loyal Readers, the press release said "issues." Plural. Not one lie. Issues. Substantial.

What the hell do you have to do to get fired at Duke?

✔After the Herald-Sun, Brodhead's media tour moved from the Herald-Sun to the News and Observer. A Raleigh reporter asked him how long he would remain President at Duke, and while the question was probably benign, it is indicative of the way more and more stakeholders in this university are thinking.

How long? Not surprisingly Brodhead waffled an answer.

✔Thank you for reading Fact Checker.

Footnote: the Journal of Clinical Oncology is pleased to announce the publication in its new issue of a paper by Potti and co-authors, applying his science to ovarian cancer.

Thank you for reading all of Fact Checker!
Duke.Fact.Checker@Gmail.com
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