Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 22:33:13 EST

Cancer Researcher Denies Misconduct

.c The Associated Press

LONDON (AP) - A South African scientist fired for alleged misconduct over research into cancer chemotherapy denied on Saturday that his methods were unethical and said he would appeal his dismissal.

Professor Werner Bezwoda had reported that his research showed a controversial ultrahigh-dose chemotherapy treatment followed by a bone-marrow transplant helped women with advanced breast cancer live longer. A tribunal at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg concluded that he misrepresented his results and he was dismissed on Friday.

Calling Bezwoda's conduct a ``deplorable breach of ethics,'' the South African university said the scientist's research records invalidated his findings and that he had not obtained the ethics approval required to conduct the study.

"The suggestion that my methods were unethical is untrue and defamatory," Bezwoda said in a statement read to The Associated Press on Saturday. "Any suggestion that patient records were faked, I emphatically deny," he added.

The inquiry was launched after a team of American cancer experts examined Bezwoda's data. The results of the U.S. team's audit were published Friday by the British medical journal, The Lancet, on its Web site.

Bezwoda's research conflicted with four other studies made public at the same time in May.

The other studies found no difference in survival for breast cancer patients who underwent less risky therapy compared with those who tried the aggressive high-dose treatment, which thousands of women have demanded.

A team of American scientists who audited Bezwoda's data in preparation for a larger study reported inconsistencies. The university said in February that the research was "discredited" and that it was investigating the professor for allegedly misrepresenting the study's results.

It had released a statement attributed to Bezwoda in which he was quoted as saying, "I acknowledge my error and take sole responsibility."

But on Saturday, Bezwoda said his ``spontaneous admission of misrepresentation regarding the method of this study'' dealt with the use of a drug called CAF as opposed to one called CNV "in respect of 54 patients."

"It does not, however, invalidate my basic conclusion that high-dose chemotherapy is more beneficial than conventional dose treatment for those high-risk patients with breast cancer. The disciplinary inquiry deliberately ignored this aspect," he said. He also said he was asked to provide "only a proportion of the data which I did for the review."

"I will appeal against my dismissal," he said.

In the report published by The Lancet, the U.S. investigators said they found the drugs Bezwoda said he used for the conventional-dose group were in fact not used, but another combination was given to the women instead.

The experts said the professor repeatedly denied them access to any records for patients in the comparison group and that records for only 58 of the 154 reportedly enrolled in the study were provided. All of those 58 had received the high-dose chemotherapy.

No signed consent forms were found either, the report added.