A well known researcher who promoted the use of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug celecoxib has admitted fabricating data in 21 of his 72 articles indexed by PubMed. The case is “among the biggest which has come to light,” said Harvey Marcovitch, chairman of the Committee on Publication Ethics, an international forum for publishers and editors of peer reviewed journals.

Scott S Reuben, chief of the acute pain service at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, has admitted the fraud, says a notice issued by the centre in late January.

Jane Albert, a spokeswoman for the centre, a teaching hospital that serves as a campus of Tufts University School of Medicine, said that after evaluating the 51 other articles by Dr …