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Thursday, December 29, 2016

Hardly the first time this has happened

The problem of folks claiming some kind of affiliation or faculty position with UCLA is not knew. Sometimes the claimer has had some kind of past affiliation - maybe taught an extension course or volunteered for something. From the Bruin:

A consultant for a pharmaceutical company falsely claimed to be a UCLA professor in a paper about EpiPen pricing. The American Journal of Medicine published the paper by Leonard Fromer, a former volunteer assistant professor of family medicine, in December that advocated for adding the allergy medication EpiPen to a federal list of preventive medical services...
Patrick Dowling, a professor and the chair of the Department of Family Medicine, said the title of volunteer assistant professor is common for doctors in the community who have a limited role in teaching medical students in the clinic or in group discussions. The department has no documentation that Fromer has taught in the last several years and has tried to contact the doctor, Dowling said. Dowling said that according to Fromer’s original letter of appointment to the volunteer faculty position, Fromer must obtain authorization from the chair of the department for any article he wants to publish in association with UCLA...
It should be obvious that if there is no penalty for such claims in actual practice, the problem will continue.

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