Search words: Anil Potti Duke University
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Fact Checker alert: There is a significant development in the Potti Mess which we are urgently researching.
The medical and scientific news website Nature.Com says two vice deans of Duke Medical School concealed information that they were given that would have blown the lid off Potti's research and clinical trials (experiments with human beings).
This occurred while Duke conducted its first formal inquiry into Potti's cancer "discoveries" in the winter of 2009-2010. FC will post as soon as we can run this down. Check back over the weekend.
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Now.. an update of our continuing coverage of a news release earlier this week announcing an award for Potti:
Officials of the Arnold Gold Foundation were as surprised as the rest of us at the press release circulated early Tuesday (and again Thursday night) saying Duke's Dr. Anil Potti had won an honor from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, its Leonard B. Tow "Humanism in Medicine" award.
"We did not put out a press release," said Karen Secular, the foundation's director of communications told FC on Thursday morning.
But the foundation confirms Potti did win the award -- given at many medical schools cross-country -- in his last days at the University of North Dakota, before he was recruited to Duke. Date: 2003
There is irony in this timing too. The website for Potti's medical school in India states that in exchange for their medical degrees, graduates are obliged to put in four years helping the teeming masses of India.
If that rule were binding on Potti, and the medical school does not respond to our inquiries, then Potti dumped out on his alma mater and countrymen -- neglecting a humanitarian mission in India while he was picking up an award for this in the USA.
Potti apparently -- from various resumes -- served one year of an internship at an Indian hospital -- omitting this from the resume he sent to North Dakota (but not in other versions of his resume) to start his internship and residency all over.
By the way, FC has heard from a 2003 medical student at Univ of North Dakota who says Potti skipped the award ceremony.
FC also wants to address a Loyal Reader who asked why we refer to this as the Potti Mess, when others including his mentor Dr Joe Nevins are deeply involved. Simple: Potti got the grants. Potti was the principal investigator. And Potti was being pushed by Duke Medicine as its star. In fact last weekend we spotted a promotional video linked to the Duke Medicine homepage that featured Potti, Chancellor Victor Dzau and others.
A quick e-mail to Dzau and the video was history within minutes.
Check back later this weekend!
