Maybe for millions. Anyone here remember Iowa State U, the one that refused tenure to exoplanet hunter Guillermo Gonzalez, an ID theorist, after a campaign by an atheist religion prof, Hector Avalos?
They hit the news again, this time for getting scammed by a biologist who admits he faked a supposed AIDS cure, the motive apparently being grant money:
The fraudulent results helped an ISU research team gain millions of dollars in federal money, according to Dr. James Bradac, who helps oversee AIDS vaccine grants for the National Institutes of Health.
Bradac said in a phone interview Monday that Han apparently added human blood components to the rabbit blood to skew the results. The human blood came from people whose bodies had produced antibodies to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, Bradac said. The presence of these antibodies in the rabbits’ blood made it appear that the vaccine was spurring the animals to build defenses against HIV. “This positive result was striking, and it caught everybody’s attention,” Bradac said.
Federal documents released Monday show the results were presented at numerous scientific meetings over several years. But researchers at other institutions became suspicious after they were unsuccessful in duplicating the ISU results.
Apparently, “Han signed an affidavit admitting that he contaminated the rabbit blood used to make the vaccine with human blood.” Here’s the Case Summary. Here’s the Federal Register.
ISU sure knows how to pick ‘em and how not to. There, you just have to tell people what they want to hear. It’ll be a while before they’ll want to know more. Years, in this case, despite the apparently dramatic nature of the find.
So what’s the penalty for taking taxpayer money and pretending to cure AIDS? Han “was removed from his employment at Iowa State and the affidavit he signed said he would not be permitted to ask for research support for several years,” Bradac said. He also “agreed to exclude himself from any federal contracts for the next three years or to serve in any advisory capacity with the U.S. Public Health Service.”
Relax, it’s not like anyone anywhere needed the money for real AIDS research or anything. Life would be too simple then.