Elias Alsabti

Elias Alsabti (Elias Abelkuder K. Alsabti) was an Iraqi medical researcher who was exposed for scientific fraud.

Alsabti built a career as an impostor. In Iraq, the medical student managed to get a reputation as a cancer researcher. He reworked articles from lesser known scientific journals into entries that he submitted for publication elsewhere. By pretending to be a member of the Jordanian royal family, he obtained a generous scholarship by the Jordanian government and in 1977 moved to the United States. In the late 1970s, he worked as a cancer specialist for various American research institutions, moving on when his utter lack of knowledge and understanding was noticed. He is estimated to have published 50 to 60 plagiarized articles in a few years, many of them in reputable journals, often with co-authors who have never published with anyone but him, which led to the suspicion that they may not exist.

Several journals retracted publications after the fraud was exposed. Alsabti's license to practice medicine in Massachusetts was revoked in 1989.

Picture: every college he has worked at has erased all information of him from their database

School: 1976 Basrah Medical College in southern Iraq Told people in Houston this, Told some US researchers he graduated from the College of Medicine at the University of Baghdad No papers demonstrating he actually graduated from medical school in the Middle East were ever found and several calls to both schools could not produce any confirmation (Broad 1980). A post by someone who supposedly knew him said he transferred from Basrah Medical College to Baghdad Medical College by order of the late Ahmad Hasan Albakr, ex President of Iraq, whom he fooled into thinking he was a cancer researcher and not just a third year student. The president gave him a car, palace, money, and a research center called Al-Baath Protein Center (Roy Roy 2006)

Degrees: Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, PhD in Cancer Immunology When and where he got his PhD is unknown, the title just appeared one day on a published paper (Broad 1980)

Born: July 30, 1954 Membership in 11 scientific societies Conducted cancer research Married to Robin B. Katz, or Kahn, February 14, 1979 in Harris County, Tx. No other mention of her, but he did live in Houston at that time and his name isn’t very common in that area.

What he did: published more than 60 papers, most in 1979. After only three years in America, 7 of 60 of Alsabti’s papers were charged with pirating, and all the others became suspect. Several of his coauthors in many of his papers have never published anything other than the papers published with Alsabti, which suggests they are fake. Some of them include A. M. Taleb, K. A. Saleh, A. S. Talat

Because of the level of which Alsabti stole work that belonged to other researchers, the entire process in which journals reviewed and accepted manuscripts changed dynamically. The level of plagiarism conduced by Alsabti demonstrated the level of problems in the review of submitted manuscripts. Wheelock suggested that publishers who submit articles to journals that have never received papers from that person before should check the credentials of that individual by looking into the authenticity of individuals referenced, people listed in the acknowledgements, and personal communications, as well as reprint addresses. One address used multiple times by Alsabti included the Albaath Specific Protein Reference Unit in Baghdad, Iraq, which Alsabti claimed in one paper to be the director. However, such a unit could not be found by the reporter. He also changed his affiliations between papers, sometimes in multiple papers published in the same journal issue, alternating between them. An example of this can be found in the Japanese journal Tumor Research, vol 13, 1978. His first paper, “Tumor dormancy: a review”, lists his affiliation as the Royal Scientific Society. His next two papers, “Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in plasma of patients with malignent and non malignant disease” and “serum immunoglobulins in acute myelogenous leukemia” list the Albaath Specific Protein Reference Unit Speculators of the motivations of Alsabti as to why he decided to pursue advancement in science by plagerism believe that perhaps he found the route thru honest work to be too slow Mavligit states, “three things about Alsabti are important to keep in mind. He is very smart, very ambitious, and rich as hell. He does not need any money. When you’ve got all these three things together, all you want to do is become famous”.

Died: September 1990 in a car accident in South Africa, however, by April 1991, a death certificate had yet to be produced.

1977 Came to the United States for a postgraduate medical education, financed by His Royal Highness Crown Prince Hassan, brother of King Hussein of Jordan, who gave him $3,000 a month to fund Alsabti’s cancer research after Alsabti convinced him he was a blood relative of the Jordanian royal family.

It later turned out he never actually acquired support from the Jordanians by pretending to be a member of the royal family, but instead was only a regular run of the mill scholarship student, and just spread that rumor, which is still all over the internet and in many of the stories and articles about him. Altho, he did end up angering the Jordanian Embassy in Washington, D. C. after they received several complaints about his royal misrepresentations and plagiarisms.

Jobs: First came to america and worked briefly at Temple University in Philadelphia. Dr. Herman Friedman met him at a meeting in Brussels, and Alsabti introduced himself as an MD. from Baghdad whom was about to get some money from his government to come to america to get his PhD and he asked to work with him.

November 1977- Next joined Dr. E. Frederick Wheelock, professor of microbiology, and his staff at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but 5 months later, in April 1978, he was asked to leave due to a dispute over the authenticity of some data. Wheelock later discovered his grant application had been pirated by Alsabti.

Three review articles signed by Alsabti appeared word for word in three different journals, one in the Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology (95: 209, 1979) and turned out to have come directly from a grant application that was written by a Philadelphia based researcher, Wheelock Wheelock wrote a letter to Alsabti when he saw the three articles that had come almost word for word from his stolen gran proposal and from several manuscripts, and demanded Alsabti acknowledge the source of the materials, or Wheelock would expose him in a letter published in a widely circulated journal. Alsabti replied in a handwritten letter February 8, 1980, “You have made certain allegations which are an insult to my integrity” He thanked Wheelock for his time and effort during Alsabti’s fellowship in his laboratory He stated he did not intend to plagiarize Wheelock and had referenced him throughout the article, crediting Wheelock and others stated that those articles were reviews so materials from various sources can be used as long as credit is given He went on to say if Wheelock wrote such a letter attempting to expose him as a plagiarizer, he would be forced to take legal actions to protect his interests Wheelock went ahead and published the letter in the April 12, 1980 issue of the Lancet and has yet to hear from Alsabti’s lawyers (Broad June 1980) Wheelock wrote to editor Ekkehard Grundmann several times describing how his work was stolen and finally received a retraction in vol. 97, p. 213 of the Journal of Cancer Research and Oncology He used this as ammunition to get the other two review articles retracted from the other two journals

1978 Jobs: Joined the lab of Giora Mavligit, professor of Medicine at M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute in Houston, TX. He asked Alsabti to leave the following February when he began to suspect Alsabti of plagiarism, but Alsabti asked him to look at a grant proposal and noticed he had left out some key words that indicated he had stolen Wheelock’s grant proposal, but did not wish to expose the incident (McKean 1980)

1979 1. A paper published by Alsabti in a Japanese journal, Journal of Medical Science and Biology (15: 1013 1979) had been stolen from the about-to-be-published dissertation of a University of Kansas graduate student, Daniel Wierda (McKean 1980) Wierda wrote to the editor, Akira Shishido demonstrating evidence that it was his work stolen, and a retraction was printed in the August issue (Broad Aug. 1980)

A paper by Alsabti in the Japanese Journal of Experimental Medicine (49:235 1979) was found to be an almost word for word copy of a paper that appeared two years earlier in the Journal of Clinical Pathology (30:1048 1977), authored by K. W. Pettingale and associated from King’s College Hospital P: Serum Protein changes in breast cancer: a prospective study A: Lymphocyte transformation in patients with breast cancer and the effect of surgery (Broad Aug. 1980)

3. A second paper by Alsabti in the Swiss Journal of Surgical Oncology (11:129 1979) was found to also be plagiarized. This research had appeared two years earlier in the British Journal of Cancer (36: 550 1977), also authored by Pettingale. Besides some of the figures and text having been changed and some of the conclusions differing, it was essentially the same paper (McKean 1980) P: Prognostic value of serum levels of immunoglobulins (IgG, IgA, IgM, and IgE) in breast cancer: a preliminary study A: Serum immunoglobulins in breast cancer (Broad Aug 1980)

February 1979: Annoyed with his antics and lies, the Jordanians cut off his funds

1980 His house in Houston went up for sale and was last seen in Houston during April 1980 driving his yellow Cadillac (Broad 1980)

May 1980- He arrived at the Caribbean Isle of Montserrat in the British West Indies to visit the American University of the Caribbean (AUC). This school is known to be a last resort for would-be doctors who have been rejected by other U.S. Medical Schools. Alsabti corresponded with Paul S. Tien, the founder of the school, and went to the isle to take a part in the graduation ceremonies, and finally received his MD. degree.

June 16, 1980- Residency program at University of Virginia in Roanoke. Gave them a diploma from the American University of the Caribbean and papers showing he had passed the ECFMG, an exam that is given to foreign medical graduates to ensure they can practice medicine in the US (Broad Jul. 1980). Gave references and letters of recommendations from South West Memorial Hospital in Houston, Tx., but none of them were ever called by UV. A plagiarism article review was brought to the attention of administrators by dean Harold B. Haley They held a conference with him June 27, 1980 concerning the paper by Wierda he plagiarized, he said, “I did not publish that paper, somebody mailed it to the Japanese in my name.” When asked why someone would do that, he replied, “I don’t know. There are a lot of things involved.” He said in this interview that several researchers had pirated him but wouldn’t say how or why this occurred. He also said his cadillac was white, not yellow, as stated in the Science article. The yellow one had been sold. Quit at age 26 on July 2, 1980.

- While in Virginia, he threatened to sue anyone who made allegations of him having pirated papers (Broad Aug. 1980)

July- Next went to internal medicine residency program at a hospital affiliated with Boston University, Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He had applied earlier in the year in February, before he was confronted with piracy charges, so his credentials had already been authenticated by the time he arrived. All he said about his previous job was he had left for “personal” problems in Virginia, leaving out the charges of piracy that were against him.

They first learned of these charges at Carney when administrators happened upon a September article in Forum on Medicine and scheduled a meeting to discuss it Monday, October 6, altho the results of that meeting are unknown

1982 A. S. Awidi, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Consultant Hematologist at the Jordan University Hospital in Amman, Jordan sent a letter April 2, 1981, to the Editor of Acta Haematologica. Acta Haematologica is a journal that covers current hematology research. This journal covers information over problems such as anemia, leukemia, multiple myeloma, and heridery diseases, among many other things, and has an impact factor of 1.354. In this letter, he draws attention to the paper, Inherited Bleeding Syndromes in Jordan, written by E. A. Alsabti and M. Hammadi. He points out discrepancies in the reported time line in the paper. Alsabti states he studied the patterns and occurrences of inherited bleeding syndromes in Jordan over the period of 1 year, beginning his work on March 11, 1977, which means he should have finished March 10, 1978. However, in the summer of 1977, Alsabti worked in the USA with Dr. Friedman at Temple, TX for 1 month. Then, from November 1977 to April 1978, he worked with Dr. Wheelock at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, PA. Therefore, he could not have completed his work in Jordan and submitted his paper for publication by April 18, 1978 because he was not physically in the country of Jordan.

The laboratory equipment technical facilities necessary to complete this work did not exist in Jordan until early 1980 and then only at the University Hospital.

None of the faculty at the King Hussein Medical Centre where the work was supposedly done had ever heard of Alsabti

By this time, Alsabti already had some reputation of being an international literature pirate. This paper was later retracted, but can still be found in the archives on the journal’s website.

Job: Monsour Medical Center in Jeannette, PA (1982-1988) These pictures are from a website where they photograph abandoned and historic infrastructures to document the buildings for memories. The building was built in 1952 in Jeannette, PA as a roadside clinic along US Route 30. The building flirted with bankruptcies 4 times and finally closed March 2006.

1983 Gained US Citizenship in PA, social security # 176-58-2758 Ohio Valley General- worked as one of 5 doctors on the emergency room staff in nearby McKees Rocks, Pittsburg, PA now age 34, until April 17, 1989 Ohio Valley General knew about his background, he said.

May 15, 1987: Hearing scheduled in front of the Board

February 3, 1988: The board issued a final decision to revoke Alsabti’s certificate of registration to practice medicine in the Commonwealth, Mass. The board declared that his repeated plagiarism could only make sense if he did it in order to advance his own career This plagiarism meant that those who offered him a position based on his credentials had been deceived not only did he steal a chance for a more qualified individual to receive a job he was given, but his continued advancement thru the field would end in the quality of medical care suffering He also has introduced into the community pool of scientific knowledge incorrect data that has a potential of being relied upon for future work. And impedes the search for truth. The Board claimed authority to take disciplinary action under G. L. c. 112, section 5 (c) conduct which places into question the physician’s competence to practice medicine Section 61 and 243 Code Mass. Regs. Section 103 (5)(a)(3)(1987): gross misconduct in the practice of medicine Section 1.03 (5)(a)(10)(1987): practicing medicine deceitfully G.L.c. 112, section 2: revoke licensure for lack of good moral character

April 10, 1989 His license to practice medicine was revoked everywhere but in Pennsylvania. After his license was revoked, he said, “I’m a good doctor, but I made a mistake and I’ve been paying for it