Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) published 31 original papers in 2005 and had in-depth knowledge of the research in all of the papers in which he was listed as a co-author, ministry spokesman Wang Che-chao (王哲超) said yesterday.
Wang’s remarks on the sidelines of a ministry press conference yesterday morning came one day after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) cited data from the Taipei Medical University while questioning the number of “papers” published under Chiu’s name in 2005.
Chiu was the head of the school’s Graduate Institute of Injury Prevention and Control from 2000 to 2004, when he became the university’s vice principal, a post he held until 2008.
“The number of papers published under Chiu’s name started to increase sharply in 2001 and peaked after he became vice principal. In 2005 alone, Chiu released 152 papers, including 112 conference papers, four case reports, four letters to the editor and 32 original papers, which meant he produced a paper almost every other day,” Kuan said in a Facebook message on Tuesday evening.
“There are simply too many for anyone to believe that Chiu actually participated in the research for the papers,” Kuan said in her message, urging Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) to address the widespread practice of senior academics adding their names to research papers by students or subordinates.
Wang said that only 31 of the 152 papers Kuan listed were original academic papers by Chiu, including three in which he was listed as the first author.
“In the academic community, people do not usually count conference papers a professor co-authored with students as an academic publication. As for the discrepancy in the number of original papers by Chiu that year, it was probably due to the fact that one of the minister’s papers was not published as scheduled,” Wang said.
Kuan yesterday took aim at Wu Ho-sheng (吳和生), director of the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Research and Diagnostic Center, saying an anonymous whistle-blower told her that of the 66 research papers published by Wu in Science Citation Index journals between 2006 and last year, 38 were the work of his subordinates, including 16 in which Wu was listed as the corresponding author.
“During that period, Wu not only served as the director of the Research and Diagnostic Center, but also took up a part-time teaching position at the university’s School of Medical Laboratory Science and Biotechnology,” Kuan said.
“How did he ever find time to participate in that much research?” she asked, adding that Wu allegedly used his authority as center director to browbeat subordinates into letting him take credit for their research.
CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) dismissed Kuan’s accusations, saying that the agency had launched an investigation into the matter in May and all nine of Wu’s colleagues questioned denied that he had asked to be listed as the corresponding author in their papers.
The reason Wu was listed as a co-author in 48 research papers was that he had helped revise them in either his capacity as the director of the CDC-affiliated National Influenza Center or the head of an intestinal disease laboratory, Chuang said.
However, CDC Director Steve Kuo (郭旭崧) said that while the case had been dealt with in the past, the agency has decided to refer it to the relevant ethics departments for further investigation “just to be sure.”
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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