A paper by Saul Sternberg and me questioned a 2001 Nutrition paper by Ranjit Chandra, a nutrition professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland. We were not the first to question Chandra’s published work. Many years earlier, a nurse named Marilyn Harvey, who worked for Chandra, complained to Memorial that Chandra could not have done the research he claimed to have done. It is now obvious that Harvey was right. A panel convened by Memorial, however, found that she was wrong — more precisely,
The university said it did conduct an investigation of Chandra’s research, but based on what it knew at the time, “properly determined there was insufficient evidence to sustain the complaint against Dr. Chandra.”
Harvey claimed that certain data didn’t exist. The Memorial panel was unable to figure out if this was right or wrong!
Harvey showed a lot of courage. She put herself at considerable risk by challenging Chandra, who was the best-known professor at Memorial. By doing a travesty of an investigation, Memorial University failed to protect her. And now Memorial University is defending what they did! Such a defense is a second travesty.
As the person responsible, the President of Memorial, Axel Meisen, continues to demonstrate his cluelessness. When the truth about Chandra became evident, he said, “I don’t think one can conclude that everything Dr. Chandra did is under suspicion.”
More about Chandra.