Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children has announced a wholesale review of the vast body of published work by Dr. Gideon Koren, the former director of the discredited Motherisk lab, amid a Star investigation that identified what appear to be problems in more than 400 of Koren’s papers. Sick Kids reacted after the Star presented the hospital with the results of the newspaper’s review that found these papers had been inadequately peer-reviewed, fail to declare, perhaps even obscure, conflicts of interest and, in a handful of cases, contain lies about the methodology used to test hair for drugs.Many of these articles stand in the scientific literature, despite two government commissioned inquiries and an internal investigation by the hospital into Motherisk, following concerns that were first raised about the program by the Star four years ago.“Despite the actions taken to date, fresh concerns have surfaced in the area of scientific reliability and academic publication conflict of interest disclosures,” Sick Kids said in a news release on Friday. “Here SickKids wishes to acknowledge the investigative work of reporters Rachel Mendleson and Michele Henry of The Star who brought relevant findings to the organization’s attention. They have unearthed publications where, on initial review, it appears that Dr. Koren did not disclose industry support that appears relevant to the primary focus of the publication or otherwise related to the published work.”Sick Kids acknowledged that while institutions rely on the good faith of scientists to disclose conflicts that could bias their work, “it is regrettable that the Hospital did not conduct any audits of Dr. Koren’s publications which may have identified disclosure issues sooner.” Koren and his lawyers did not immediately respond to requests to comment for this story and have not responded to questions over the past month related to the Star’s broader inves ...
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