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Science 14 April 2006:
Vol. 312. no. 5771, p. 193
DOI: 10.1126/science.312.5771.193a
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Newsmakers

Figure 1
TUNED OUT. Charges of plagiarism have driven off the air one of Britain's best known psychiatrists: Raj Persaud of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London. Persaud "stepped down" as host of BBC's popular radio show All in the Mind, the company announced last week, "because of continuing allegations of plagiarism." King's College is investigating the charges.

More than a year ago, psychologist Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, complained to Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry that Persaud had failed to credit him in a February 2005 commentary on Stanley Milgram's work on obedience. Last fall, the journal retracted the article. In December, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) also retracted Persaud's review of Blass's biography of Milgram, published on 6 August, "owing to unattributed use of text from other published sources."

The Guardian quoted a letter from Persaud saying that his acknowledgement of Blass was deleted by BMJ during editing. BMJ then posted Persaud's unedited draft and wrote to The Guardian that Persaud's text "borrows almost verbatim" from Blass's writing without attributing the material to him (bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/ 7512/356/DC1). Persaud could not be reached for comment.

CREDIT: COLIN MCPHERSON




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