Author: Eva Pastor
Date: 09-19-11 13:40
Source: The Herald-Sun
URL: http://www.heraldsun.com
Date published: September 19th 2011
Second lawsuit filed against Duke for Potti’s research
BY BETH VELLIQUETTE
DURHAM – In addition to a lawsuit filed by two cancer patients and the estates of six others last week, another cancer patient has filed a lawsuit against Duke University and its health system, stemming from the treatment she received based on flawed research by Anil Potti.
Joyce Shoffner of Wake County filed the lawsuit through Zaytoun Law Firm and named Duke University, Duke University Health System, Private Diagnostic Clinic, Joseph Nevins, Potti, Paul Kelly Marcom, Michael Cuffe, Sally Kornbluth, John Harrelson and Cancer Guide Diagnostics, which was formerly known as Oncongenomics, as defendants.
Like the other lawsuit, Shoffner claims she was a victim of Potti’s bad research and the lack of corrective action taken even after Potti and Nevins had been put on notice that there were errors in his data.
Shoffner claims that after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she was introduced to the idea of participating in a medical trial based on Potti’s research and was led to believe that during the trial, she would receive genomic-guided chemotherapy that would reliably predict between two treatment options that would give her the higher likelihood of a favorable response, the lawsuit states.
She received treatment that was not the standard chemotherapy treatment for her type of cancer during the 2008 trial, the lawsuit states.
Later, she found out that the choice of treatment for her was based on the flawed research of Potti, and that the University had been warned in 2006 that Potti had used unpublished data from the work of a University of Michigan doctor and genome scientist. When that doctor saw an article in The New England Journal of Medicine using his data, he saw errors and believed that Potti’s analysis was “highly suspect,” the lawsuit states.
He then contacted Potti and Nevins, the co-author of the article, and informed them of his concerns, but Potti and Nevins continued forward, the lawsuit states.
“No adequate corrective action was taken by Potti, Nevins or by anyone at Duke University and/or Duke University Health Systems to correct the numerous errors in the clinical data or research propounded by the Duke cancer research in the 2006 NEJM article,” the lawsuit states.
Other researchers then began raising questions about the research and said they couldn’t replicate the findings.
The lawsuit states that as a result of the improper treatment she received, she required surgery, developed diabetes and her tumor had not shrunk. Instead it had grown, the lawsuit states.
She did not seek proper therapy because Duke and/or DUHS delayed and obfuscated the truth, and it reduced her chance for survival from the cancer.
The lawsuit lists 22 claims against the various defendants, including negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, medical negligence, constructive fraud, unfair and deceptive trade practices, infliction of emotional distress and loss of chance.
As a result of receiving the improper treatment, she suffered a 10 percent decrease in her life expectancy over 10 years if she had received standard treatment for the type of cancer she had, the lawsuit states.
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