This is probably one of the biggest medical research frauds in history. Dr. Scott S. Reuben, an anesthesiologist and former chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Mass., recently plead guilty to health care fraud and must pay $420,000 in restitution, federal court records show.
Dr. Reuben created a furor in the medical community last year when he was accused of making up research results in at least 21 published studies and inventing patients in certain instances.
Prosecutors say he was a proponent of “post-operative multimodal analgesia therapy,” which combined drugs other than opioids. Critics question whether the method is safe for bone-healing, and effective enough following certain types of surgeries and for chronic pain.
Reuben was considered an authority on the topic by 2001, the charge states. Prosecutors say he proposed research studies to pharmaceutical companies, accepted grant money and published articles in medical journals on phony research.
In 2005, Reuben received a $74,000 research grant from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, agreeing to test Celebrex as a component of the multimodal therapy. He claimed to have treated 200 patients, 100 with Pfizer’s product and 100 with a placebo.
In fact, Reuben had not enrolled any patients and the results reported both to Pfizer and to the Anesthesia and Analgesia Journal and to the public were totally made up!
Dr. Reuben had also been a paid speaker on behalf of Pfizer’s medicines and he wrote favorable reviews on Pfizer’s Celebrex and Lyrica.
Do you think there was a conflict of interest here?
Remember, you are responsible for your own health – you have to be your own health advocate!
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