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news without borders
Bombs thrown at Northern
Ireland policemen over arrests
BELFAST: Gangs of youths threw petrol
bombs at policemen in Northern Ireland
on Saturday after a prominent republican
was among three people arrested over
the murder of two British soldiers.
The troubled province’s police chief,
meanwhile, warned that hundreds of
dissidents, whom he described as “very
dangerous”, were aiming to derail its
fledgling peace process.
The three men, aged 21, 32 and 41,
were being questioned by police over the
shooting of the soldiers at Massereene
Barracks in Antrim, northwest of Belfast,
on March 7. According to a police source,
the 41-year-old was Colin Duffy, who has
distanced himself from Republican party
Sinn Fein since it agreed to share power
with pro-London unionists.
In the aftermath of his arrest, gangs
of masked youths threw stones at police
near Duffy’s home in Lurgan, southwest
of Belfast, and petrol bombs were later
thrown at vehicles belonging to the Police
Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), a police
spokesman said.
“Missiles including petrol bombs and
stones have been thrown at police at a
number of locations in Lurgan,” a PSNI
spokesman said, adding that no one had
been injured and no petrol bombs had
been thrown since around 7pm (3am in
Malaysia).
The spokesman estimated that the
youths had numbered around 20, and
said that a male in his late teens was ar-
rested but later released, while a male in
his early teens had also been arrested.
The Real IRA, a dissident republican
group, claimed responsibility for the
March 7 attack which killed Mark Quinsey,
23, and Cengiz “Patrick” Azimkar, 21, in
the first such killings for over a decade.
CCTV footage of the attack – in which
four people were also injured in a hail of
bullets, when the soldiers stepped outside
the barracks to receive a pizza delivery
– has helped detectives hunting the killers.
Three men were already being questioned
over the killing of policeman Stephen
Carroll in Northern Ireland on Monday,
an attack claimed by another republican
splinter group, the Continuity IRA.
On Saturday, a police
spokesman said that they had
seized a gun and ammunition
while conducting a search in
Craigavon, the town where
Carroll was shot.
Officers also arrested
an unnamed 30-year-
old woman and a
3 7 - y e a r- o l d
man in the
same town
in connec-
tion with
“serious
terrorist
offences”.
– AFP
Probe into faked studies
pains medical community
WASHINGTON: A trail-blazing anesthesiolo-
A soldier and gist, whose research shaped pain-relief for mil-
his son at a lions around the world, has been fabricating
prayer vigil data for more than a decade, a hospital where
for the slain he once practised claimed on Saturday.
soldiers and Massachusetts-based doctor Scott Reuben
policeman is accused of producing at least 21 crooked
outside the research papers, some of which talked-up
British army drugs made by a pharmaceutical firm that
barracks at gave him research grants.
Massereene. “The reports contained fabricated data that
was created solely by Dr Reuben,” said Jane
Albert, a spokeswoman for the Baystate Medi-
cal Centre, where Reuben once practised.
If proven, the discovery would be one of
the biggest cases of medical research fraud
on record – spanning at least a decade and
implicating potentially dozens of supposedly
peer-reviewed articles.
According to journal Anaesthesia & Anal-
gesia at least 21 articles are in question dating
back to 1996. The journal’s editor Steven
Shafer said the discovery could prove a body
blow to the field. “Doctors have been using
(his) findings very widely. His findings had a
huge impact on the field.”
Although Baystate said there were no
allegations involving patient care, Shafer
cautioned against ruling out practical reper-
cussions.
“We have to be open to the possibility there
was patient injury. Nothing is without risk.”
Reuben, 50, had been a high-profile propo-
nent of anti-inflammatory drugs called COX2
theSun | MONDAY MARCH 16 2009
inhibitors, which he claimed reduced post-
surgical pain and dependence on steroids and
addictive drugs like morphine.
Reuben plugged the use of one COX2 in-
hibitor – Celebrex – along with another drug
called Lyrica, both manufactured by US-based
pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., as well as
another anti-inflammatory drug made by
Merck.
Anaesthesia & Analgesia, where some of
Reuben’s work had been published, said he
had received research grants from Pfizer and
is a member of its speaker’s bureau.
In a statement, Pfizer spokeswoman Sally
Beatty said the firm was “not involved in the
conduct of any of these independent studies
or in the interpretation or publication of the
study results.”
“It is very disappointing to learn about Dr
Scott Reuben’s alleged actions,” the company
said.
Reuben’s work first aroused suspicion
when he submitted two abstracts for an an-
nual Baystate research conference.
Assessors discovered that the data con-
tained in the reports had not been cleared with
the hospital’s review board.
The investigation which began in spring
last year “eventually uncovered an extensive
history of fabrication dating back to 1996,”
said Baystate’s Jane Albert. The 21 studies that
have been discredited deal with anaesthesia
used in post-operative care ranging from knee
to spinal surgery. – AFP