Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS FEATURE

How a data detective exposed suspicious medical trials

Anaesthetist John Carlisle has spotted problems in hundreds of research papers — and spurred a leading medical journal to change its practice.
  1. David Adam

    1. David Adam is a science journalist based in London.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

If John Carlisle had a cat flap, scientific fraudsters might rest easier at night. Carlisle routinely rises at 4.30 a.m. to let out Wizard, the family pet. Then, unable to sleep, he reaches for his laptop and starts typing up data from published papers on clinical trials. Before his wife’s alarm clock sounds 90 minutes later, he has usually managed to fill a spreadsheet with the ages, weights and heights of hundreds of people — some of whom, he suspects, never actually existed.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 571, 462-464 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02241-z

References

  1. Carlisle, J. B. Anaesthesia 67, 521–537 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Carlisle, J. B. & Loadsman, J. A. Anaesthesia 72, 17–27 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Bolland, M. J., Avenell, A., Gamble, G. D. & Grey, A. Neurology 87, 2391–2402 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Carlisle, J. B. Anaesthesia 72, 944–952 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Estruch, R. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 378, e34 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Myles, P. S., Carlisle, J. B. & Scarr, B. Anaesthesia 74, 573–584 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Loadsman, J. A. & McCulloch, T. J. Anaesthesia 72, 931–935 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Kharasch, E. D. & Houle, T. T. Anesthesiology 127, 733–737 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Kharasch, E. D. & Houle, T. T. Anaesthesia 73, 125–126 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Eur. J. Anaesthesiol. 34, 249 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links