Neurologist’s lab research barred
Penalty too harsh, critics say
For four years, Jed Meltzer studied communication disorders at the National Institutes of Health, using brain-imaging technology to pinpoint the impact of strokes on speech. His postdoctoral training, he wrote on his blog, constituted “some of the most scientifically satisfying years of my life.
“I got to collect amazing, irreplaceable data, and I got to learn from the best and work with unparalleled resources. Most importantly, I got to publish several papers that established my scientific reputation and positioned me to move into a faculty position in 2010.”
But now those data are useless for Meltzer and about a dozen other scientists caught in a dispute that is unusually fierce, even for the highly competitive world of elite biomedical research.
The leadership at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, where Meltzer worked, has banned the use of data collected over 25 years from more than 1,000 volunteers in the lab of neurologist Allen Braun, citing “serious and widespread” record-keeping errors, all of them clerical matters related to forms used for matters such as screening volunteers or logging physical exams.
But there have been no allegations that data were altered, plagiarized or fabricated, and no one’s safety was threatened — the kind of misconduct that usually leads to such severe penalties in scientific research. Many people say the harsh punishment stems, instead, from a long-standing conflict at the institute, whose leadership has forced numerous scientists like Braun to leave in recent years.
Critics contend that millions of dollars’ worth of research has been squandered at a time when NIH faces the prospect of sharp budget cuts from President Donald Trump’s administration.
The penalty is “absolutely bizarre,” said David Poeppel, a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University who has followed the controversy in his field. “It’s actually unheard of. It’s also unclear who’s being served by that. Certainly not the taxpayer.”
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Director James Battey and other leaders of the 29-year-old institute — one of the smallest parts of NIH — declined to comment. In letters to Meltzer and others, however, Battey contended that a February 2016 audit conducted by a contractor hired by the institute concluded that the work in Braun’s lab was “irretrievably compromised and we felt that the only course was to close” the studies.
But those affected say the audit widely mischaracterized the procedures in Braun’s lab.
Violations in Braun’s lab were “like a low-grade fever,” said Nan Bernstein Ratner, a professor in the University of Maryland’s Department of Hearing and Speech, who has worked with some of the affected researchers and has lost data that might have been used in two papers. “We are not talking about something that compromises the publish-ability of the data. It doesn’t impact the interpretation of the data. It doesn’t impact the veracity of the data.”
Braun, 71, studied language and communication disorders. He and other researchers used imaging technology in an attempt to determine the brain’s role in aphasia, stuttering and other conditions that affect communication.
He was at least the sixth scientist forced out since Andrew Griffith took over in 2009 as science director of the institute, which has 16 laboratories, according to people familiar with the conflict.
Braun was forced to retire in June 2016, just one day before an “institutional review board,” which oversees research conduct at several institutes, was scheduled to issue a decision that might have allowed researchers to continue their work.
In letters to Meltzer and Ratner, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders has made clear that it considers the matter closed.
Clinical Director Carter Van Waes said in the statement that if researchers “can demonstrate that all of the data for all of the participants was collected in compliance with the approved protocol, then the institute will consider additional requests for publication based on the data.”
Meltzer said that offer was made previously but that the standard is impossible to meet, because inconsequential records from years ago may no longer be available. Ratner also said it is unlikely to change anything.
“They’re not going to allow anyone to publish anything,” Meltzer said.