The anesthesiologist who invented 21 studies — and changed how millions were treated

Scott Reuben was a star in anesthesiology — a professor at Tufts University, chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center in Massachusetts, and the author of dozens of influential studies on pain management. His research claimed to show that certain painkillers, particularly Pfizer's Celebrex, were effective for post-surgical pain with few side effects. His findings changed how millions of patients were treated after orthopedic surgery.

In May 2008, Baystate conducted a routine audit and discovered that Reuben had not obtained approval for two studies he planned to present during the hospital's research week. The audit unraveled everything: Reuben had fabricated data in 21 journal articles dating back to at least 1996. He had never conducted the clinical trials. In some cases, he invented the patients. He forged the names of co-authors who had no knowledge of the studies. The fraud was discovered only because he failed to get internal approval for two new studies — the published research had never been audited at all.

Reuben admitted the fraud in March 2009. He pleaded guilty to health care fraud in 2010 and was sentenced to six months in federal prison, fined $5,000, and ordered to pay $360,000 in restitution to the pharmaceutical companies whose grants he had taken. His medical license was permanently revoked, and the FDA permanently debarred him from working on drug applications. Scientific American called him the medical equivalent of Bernie Madoff.