SARAH BULLEN, Cape Town | Friday 7.45pm
THE University of the Witwatersrand on Friday fired Professor Werner Bezwoda for misrepresenting the results of a clinical trial for breast cancer treatment. The trials were conducted on more than 100 indigent black women without their formal consent.
Bezwoda was also found guilty because he failed to obtain the ethics approval required from the university before the trials.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Colin Bundy announced the decision at a media conference at the conclusion of a day-long disciplinary hearing which included evidence from the team of American scientists who uncovered the fraud in February.
The Mail & Guardian reported at the time that Bezwoda made his bombshell admission after investigators from the United States flew to South Africa to verify his research, which suggested that women with advanced breast cancer could be treated with high dosages of chemotherapy. It has now emerged the investigators could only find records for fewer than half of the 154 women on whom Bezwoda claimed to have conducted his trials at Johannesburg hospital.
Bezwoda presented his findings to the American Society for Clinical Oncology (Asco) last year, after which scientists sought to assess his novel research so as to start implementing it in the US. The US society now believes many of Bezwoda’s patients were fabricated.
Announcing Bezwoda’s firing on Friday, University vice-chancellor Professor Colin Bundy said: “The University regrets this deplorable breach of ethics. We recognise our responsibility to the community that we serve. We also extend a heartfelt apology to the patients involved in this research. For these women there has been rupture in the relationship of trust which should prevail in the medical profession. We will do everything possible to prevent this shocking ethical breach of individual rights of our people from ever occurring again.”