Saturday, May 9, 2009

The oxygen thief is back

Who? Why; Jon Sudbø of course. There is an interview with him in today's weekend VG issue, following the inexplicable decision to give him back his license as a practicing GP.

If you thought that he appeared humble or sincere in the interview, you'd be dead wrong. The committee that investigated his case, led by Professor Anders Ekbom from Karolinska in Stockholm vastly exaggerated and didn't know what they were talking about. According to Sudbø, he just got "carried away", and also he suggests that what he did was not unique, because pursuit of science is hardly noble. In addition to these weak accusations, he claims that the academic system is to blame, because of the pressure to publish and parlay the publicized results into research grants.

...or how about an alternative explanation: Jon Sudbø is a scrub scientist who simply can't take the pressure and has to resort to cheating to make it in the big league. To wit, he was caught cheating as early as during his Ph.D. study, so already at that level he had to cheat to get anywhere. And now he is trying to pull the rest of the scientific community down with him, because his overinflated ego can't come to terms with him being a third-rate scientist and a piece of shit human being. As far as the charges against him being exaggerated, the Editor of The Lancet - hardly known for hyperbole - referred to his "being carried away" as the biggest science fraud the world has seen.

Upon being asked whether he felt shame, Sudbø answers that it was worse than that - at some point he felt worthless. Not, mind you, because he'd done something wrong, but because his character had been assaulted in the media for so long. Also, he complains about how he's currently held to "an ethical standard ten levels above the average dentist or GP".

That, you waste of perfectly good oxygen, is because there's a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. So while Sudbø has been proven to be a lying piece of steaming monkey crap since he embarked on his Ph.D., one might excuse the various agencies if they're a bit sceptical towards any claim laid by him.

And maybe people working on cancer therapy should be held to a higher standard anyways. Sudbø's data was to be fed into an actual therapeutic, so what I wonder is: How long was he going to keep making up data and waste enormous amounts of money and time meant to develop something that worked?

On the plus side, the article mentions that he enjoys paragliding. With a dangerous hobby like that, one might hope....

5 comments:

Anders said...

Man, you beat me to it. I just logged on here to write about it. I'm actually shocked about this. One of the biggest cheaters in the history of science, a man who did not hesitate starting a large scale human trial, based on bogus results. And he's allowed to practise medicine? They might as well team him up with Dr. Mengele.

My last drop of faith in the Norwegian medical society just vanished...

Wilhelm said...

At what point was he going to 'fess up to the bogus results? How many shattered hopes and possibly lives lost would it take?

He even states in the article that he's a really good GP - if there's anything he's proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, it's that he is the last person who should be trusted to provide healthcare. In my book he's below Mengele - at least he didn't cheat his way to a doctorate, and he probably believed in the merit of his results.

Anders said...

Yes. If Sudbø's actions doesn't qualifiy for loosing the medical licensens, what does? There are people who have lost their licenses, I wonder what they have done? And it's no excuse that no pasient where directly hurt by Sudbø, just because he got busted in time!

I'm speechless...

Btw: I can't find the article on VG net. I hope they publish it over the weekend.

Anders said...

It is still just VG who has published this story. I've decided to cross my fingers and hope that VG has misunderstood something, and that Sudbø is forever banned from the medical society.

Wilhelm said...

...Sudbø did not get enough pressure by far.