Scientist arrested in US for fraud connected with HIV research

On June 25, Jilard News reported on a fraud case involving HIV research in the US:

In a rare move, federal prosecutors have charged a scientist with fraud. The charges stem from falsified data which had attracted millions of dollars in research grants.

Normally the U.S. Office of Research Integrity will investigate allegations of research misconduct, although since they do not have prosecution authority, charges are rare. In this case, the alleged fraud was so blatant and involved such a huge amount of money that federal prosecutors felt they had to step in.

The charges are based on years of research by Dong-Pyou Han, a former laboratory manager at Iowa State University and a native of South Korea. Han’s research into an HIV vaccine was promising and gained widespread attention. The hope was that the successful HIV vaccine could be administered to at-risk people around the globe, preventing them from catching the devastating disease. Because of the urgency for HIV treatments and vaccines, and because the research showed great promise, Han’s lab secured millions of dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health to continue their research.

However, another laboratory eventually looked into Han’s work and found irregularities. They became convinced that the data was purposely falsified.

As Han was investigated, he admitted to placing human antibodies in rabbit blood to make it look like his vaccine was working. He had sent the samples to another lab who verified the results. However, in reality, Han’s vaccine appears to be a dud, which is a big disappointment for the scientific community and those affected by HIV and AIDS. Han claims he acted alone, without the knowledge of the lead researcher Michael Cho, and that he simply wanted the results of his research to look better.

Last week, prosecutors went ahead and charged Han with four counts of making false statements. If convicted, the scientist could face up to five years in prison for each charge. Han failed to appear in court Tuesday for his arraignment, apparently due to a mix-up, so he has another court date scheduled next week. Han had already surrendered his passport.

Two weeks later, the Demoines Register reported further on the case, noting that Han had resigned from the university last year when the fraud was discovered, and that he had pleaded not guilty. It also reported that

The team, which includes researchers at other universities, was awarded $14.5 million in such grants over several years, officials have said. Much of that money was awarded because of the team's dramatic reports of vaccine success, which turned out to be bogus.

The National Institutes of Health decided, unsurprisingly, "not to make the final, $1.38 million payment on a grant to the ISU team." The article adds that this "decision comes on top of ISU's agreement to reimburse the federal agency $496,000 for salary and other costs related to Dong-Pyou Han's employment."

Quite the salary, though it's possible it was for his five years of employment at the university.

As the Jilard News article makes clear, the money could have been of great use had it not been misappropriated, considering the progress being made in HIV research elsewhere:

The next most promising vaccine comes from a lab in Thailand, which has succeeded in protecting about a third of its recipients from infection. However, this rate is not high enough for widespread vaccination programs. An HIV vaccine remains a priority for scientific research as people in both developed and developing countries continue to contract the serious disease at a rate of about 6,300 new cases a day.

Despite it being 'a rare move' for federal prosecutors to charge a scientist with fraud, and despite similarity with another well-known Korean scientist who committed fraud (and especially in the post-Sewol mood of self-criticism), only a handful of Korean news outlets reported on this, with the Segye Ilbo being the only major paper to publish a report (which refers to him as a '재미 한인,' or Korean American).