University calls for mobile phone research to be withdrawn after technician admits faking data

doi:10.1136/bmj.39598.629271.DB

BMJ 2008;336:1270 (7 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.39598.629271.DB

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University calls for mobile phone research to be withdrawn after technician admits faking data

Annette Tuffs

¹ Heidelberg

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The rector of the Medical University of Vienna, Wolfgang Schütz,has asked researchers at his university to withdraw their twopublications based on faked data supposedly showing that electromagneticradiation from mobile phones causes DNA breakage in human tissuecells.

The study had caused considerable public concern about the healthrisks from mobile phones. In a statement the university saysthat a laboratory technician from the department of occupationalmedicine has since confessed that she fabricated the data. Thedepartment was closed in October 2007 after the retirement ofits head, Hugo Rüdiger.

The studies based on the faked data were published in 2005 inthe journal Mutation Research (2005;583:178-83) and in 2008in the International Archives of Occupational and EnvironmentalHealth (2008;81:755-67). The journals’ editors have beeninformed about the scientific misconduct, the university saidin a press statement.

The matter was raised by the biologist Alexander Lerchl, from. . . [Full text of this article]

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