China Dismisses Researchers and Punishes Hospital Leadership After Gene Therapy Scandal

Findings of the investigation at a Shanghai hospital

Chinese authorities have dismissed two medical researchers and imposed disciplinary measures on five senior executives of Xinhua Hospital, affiliated with the medical school of Shanghai Jiao Tong University — the move concerns a scandal surrounding an experimental gene therapy study in which a child died. Anadolu reported the findings citing the results of the review released on Friday by a Shanghai municipal investigative task force set up after the probe began in July. The course of the investigation was covered by the Chinese outlet The Paper.

Penalties and violations identified

The researchers, surnamed Qiu and Yang, have been dismissed, barred for five years from participating in scientific projects and receiving awards, and added to the national blacklist for research integrity. Yang was a junior researcher at the hospital and the first co-author of the study. Five senior hospital officials received disciplinary punishments, including demotions and official warnings. The investigative task force found failures in safety assessment, ethical review, and disclosure of risks associated with the experimental treatment.

Funding and the question of the data

A separate conclusion of the commission concerns funding: the family of the deceased child contributed 5.337 million yuan (about $750,000) to the study, and the researchers also received additional money and gifts. At the same time, according to the investigators, no evidence of data falsification was found in the article published in the journal Nature. Thus, the penalties are linked to violations of safety procedures, ethics, and risk disclosure, not to the unreliability of the publication itself.