Tag Archives: misconduct

Patent fiasco

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This week seems to be the ‘patent fiasco’ week for India.

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First up was a media report alleging that a top GM food crop scientist made false claims about his patents just to get a national award. The scientist in question — Kailash Bansal – claimed to have filed three patents for new gene discoveries in crops. On the basis of the claims, he was selected for a national award for outstanding research in transgenic crops for the year 2007-2008.  However, it turns out that he had not applied for any patent even till July 2009, when he got the award.

The report goes on to provide proof of this goof up by citing data obtained from a ‘Right to Information’ (RTI) query as well as through sources from the patent application committee of the scientist’s institute, which had no clue of the applications till the award citation mention them. When the committee quizzed Bansal on this, he provided a patent application number filed in August 2009.

The scientist, subsequently designated director of India’s plant gene bank despite these false claims, continues to hold the award.

The question that the case raises is whether such misconduct by senior scientists will continue to be pushed under the carpet or will the Indian Council of Agricultural Research – the coveted research body that employs the scientist in question – respond to the allegations and hold him accountable.

In another significant development, India revoked a patent on a herbal medicine to treat diabetes. The government withdrew a patent given to drug maker Avesthagen on its diabetes drug made out of extracts from locally available plant parts. The reason: the extracts are known to be integral parts of the Ayurvedic, Unani and Siddha systems of medicine.

The move is being seen as the first step towards scrapping of many similar patents on medicines made out of commonly used plants and fruits such as amla, methi, karela and ashwagandha on grounds that they are part of traditional knowledge, something that India has begun to protect fiercely.

Coincidentally, Wired magazine started a series this week, analysing what is wrong with the patent systems and trying to find solutions to fix them. It would be great to follow the discussions over the coming weeks to see what lessons India can take home.

Race defense

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University of Connecticut Health Center researcher Dipak Das found guilty of fabrication and falsification of data has raised the ‘Indian therefore harassed’ card heard so many times in the past in western scientific circles.

Dipak Das

The researcher who worked on the health benefits of a chemical in red wine fabricated data in 145 separate research projects, a three-year investigation by the university has found. University officials have notified 11 scientific journal studies co-authored by Dipak Das of the fraud. The Jadavpur University alumnus, whose work focused on the grape skin antioxidant resveratrol, responded to the inquiry in a 2010 letter saying it was a “conspiracy against Indian scientists”.

“Careful examination of these papers (the inquiry report) would result in a striking feature. All the accused authors are of INDIAN ORIGIN…it is an entirely racial issue – war against Indian community and unfortunately I am also an Indian,” he said in a lengthy response to the inquiry defending himself and his Indian co-authors.

Now, why does this sound familiar? Why is it that falling back upon the ‘racial’ defense is the first response of many researchers found guilty of  misconduct. We discussed the feeling of ‘third world alienation’ in another blog post earlier and got some pertinent responses.

It would be good to hear from our readers — based on their analysis of the charges by the University of Connecticut and the defense provided by Das — as to whether they think the racial card is played with or without much substance in many such cases. What’s your view of the whole issue as a case study in this regard?