A British science journalist-turned-attorney who initiated a lawsuit that saw a Harvard University-affiliated cancer centre pay $15 million (11 million) to settle claims of alleged data misrepresentation says the landmark case has led to a surge in whistleblowers coming forward.
“I’ve definitely seen an uptick in inquiries – I have many more than I can work on right now,” explained Eugenie Reich, a Boston-based lawyer who used the False Claims Act to sue the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In December, the centre agreed to settle the claim after admitting using images and data that were “misrepresented and/or duplicated” in support of grant applications to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The False Claims Act allows private citizens to sue on behalf of the US government if firms or institutions have submitted false claims to gain federal contracts, with judges able to award whistleblowers up to 30 per cent of the settlement. In this case, 17.5 per cent of the settlement will go to Sholto David, a doctoral graduate of Newcastle University in the UK, who filed the claim in April 2024 three months after he posted about the allegations on the blog For Better Science.
However, it was Reich, a former New Scientist writer who retrained as a lawyer in 2015, who alerted David to the possibility of bringing the case privately through her firm. As a result, David will now share about $2.8 million (2 million) with his legal team – potentially the first time an external...
A British science journalist-turned-attorney who initiated a lawsuit that saw a Harvard University-affiliated cancer centre pay $15 million (11 million) to settle claims of alleged data misreprese...