Even famous doctors have their identity stolen: Dr. Eric Topol “authors” an apparently fake, AI-generated paper

April 23, 2026 | by | No Comments

And now, it’s author names on research papers being spoofed. Eric Topol, MD, the noted physician, cardiologist, health tech maven, and director/founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, just experienced Grand Theft Auto on his identity. He was listed as the lead author of a paper entitled “Implementation Science for AI Integration in Digital Health Systems”, along with five other author/contributors. It was published in the “Journal of Digital Health Implementation” by Ellinger Publishing Media on 29 March.

Except, as Dr. Topol wrote in a post on his Substack blog, “Ground Truths“, he never wrote it.

From his post along with a screenshot of the ‘paper’ and a link:

“This is a FRAUDULENT paper, AI-generated. My name was used as an author and I had nothing to do with it, never saw it until today

The “Editors” Angelo Rossi Mori, David Mensah, and Zarnie Khadjesari and this “Journal” should be reported.”

Substack readers are often commenters, and your Editor is no exception. So she did some digging and commented on Dr. Topol’s post [Editor’s further notes in brackets]:

Dr. Topol, the link on your post [he provided a link to the publication] is not only going nowhere (to blank screen/’this site can’t be reached”), but also trying to reach the e-PubMed.co.uk site by entering it directly goes to the same screen. When I searched under Ellinger Publishing in Google and the same URL came to the top under them [see screenshot right below], the link equally does not work. The UK E-PubMed Central is now Europe PMC concentrating on UK/EU research and partners with the US NIH PubMed site on certain papers, from what I have read online.

Gemini came up with this about Ellinger: “Ellinger Publishing Media: An independent academic publisher specializing in open-access journals, specifically focusing on artificial intelligence, medicine, social sciences, and interdisciplinary research.” Again, links in the AI summary to e-pubmed.co.uk do not work. My conclusion is that this is a total spoof/hack using a URL similar to the former UK E-PubMed and this Ellinger Publishing is a fraud. I don’t know how you picked it up but it’s no longer reachable.

But, as they say on direct response TV…there’s more. I replied to my own comment, “The paper has a link [that goes to another website], Zenodo. It says clearly that it has been withdrawn from there too. Reason for removal—copyright infringement.”

https://zenodo.org/records/19337363

So what happened? Its withdrawal is as mysterious as its appearance.

At this point, we can draw only certain conclusions.

When research papers, apparently AI-generated, are being fraudulently posted with names as prominent as Dr. Eric Topol’s plus five other authors (who may or may not be real–have not checked), for content that is clearly academic-appearing (apparently a meta-analysis), anyone who publishes or has a public persona is in trouble. Big trouble. And with little defense against this happening.

But even worse, unless the Ellinger Publishing Media site itself has been hacked, this may well be a fraudulent publisher claiming open access journal status.

  • My prompt on Gemini, FWIW, indicates that Ellinger Publishing is a ‘vanity press’ for books, not a journal publisher; read for yourself here. So Gemini contradicted itself when asked the prompt differently.
  • The journal is fake as well. A search on Google on the name gives you a link to a website called Conference.Researchbib.com, but when you click on the link for the journal, it goes to the same E-PubMed UK ‘this site can’t be reached’ URL as above.

Open access journals per se are controversial enough since they exist to publish non-peer reviewed materials. For studies in progress, this is valid as a platform for further discussion and research. But it doesn’t and cannot carry the weight, the rigor of peer review. We all know that less than rigorous studies used by less than scrupulous companies have leveraged open access journals for sales/survival proof purposes.

Fraudulent open access journals on mysterious websites that spoof the names of once-authentic journal websites just take it one step further. One wonders how long has this been going on.

This Editor invites Readers to give their perspective on this matter.

Theranos, The Trial of Elizabeth Holmes, ch. 7: Edison labs consistent–in deficiency and strange results

November 11, 2021 | by

And Elizabeth Holmes knew. The last two years of Theranos’ existence, were, to put it mildly, fraught, for anyone honest. Job 1 for the very last in a parade of lab directors, Kingshuk Das, MD, was to respond to CMS on substantial deficiencies found in a November 2015 on-site inspection. The CMS deficiency report, sent to the prior lab director in January 2016, two months before Dr. Das’ start, had a subject line that would grab anyone’s immediate attention: “CONDITION LEVEL DEFICIENCIES – IMMEDIATE JEOPARDY.”

The report went on to say that it was determined that your facility is not in compliance with all of the Conditions required for certification in the CLIA program.” and concluded that “the deficient practices of the laboratory pose immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety.”

Dr. Das found some interesting things in his early days on the job, such as the Edison labs producing results detecting abnormal levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA)–in female patients. When he brought this to Holmes’ attention, she quoted a few journal articles stating that certain rare breast cancers in women might present that result. This didn’t seem quite plausible to Dr. Das. Holmes then told him that it wasn’t an instrument failure, but rather a quality control and quality assurance issue. Nevertheless, Dr. Das went back and voided every Edison lab test made in 2014 and 2015, stating to Holmes that the Edison labs were not performing from the start. Most Theranos results sent to patients were produced on third-party machines made by Siemens and others, often on inadequately sized blood samples. 

As Dr. Das testified to the defense, many skilled people at Theranos earnestly tried to fix the problems with the Edison lab machines, but, as The Verge put it in part, if Holmes didn’t believe Dr. Das, other employees, or multiple preceding lab directors that the machines were really, truly broken, did it matter?

The defense is maintaining that Holmes didn’t really understand the lab details and was heavily influenced (ahem!) by president Sunny Balwani. However, the Babe in the Medical Startup Woods defense falls apart when there’s no Sunny to blame–he departed shortly after Dr. Das’ arrival. 

The actual theme–a long-term pattern of deception aimed at those who wanted to believe, and ponied up Big Bucks--was reinforced by a witness before Dr. Das. Lynette Sawyer was a temporary co-lab director for six months during 2014 and 2015, but never came to the Theranos site. It seems that her main duties were signing off remotely on documents using Docusign and backing up then-lab director Dr. Sunil Dhawan, Balwani’s dermatologist who came to the lab a handful of times. Even more amazingly, she was unaware of Theranos’ signature ‘nanotainers’ and the backup use of third-party devices. After her six-month contract was up, she departed, uncomfortable with Theranos’ procedures.

Kicking off the day was Judge Davila’s regular admonition to those in the public section of the courtroom to type vewy, vewy quietly. Then the video display for exhibits broke down. This led to a two-hour delay while the court found an antique projector to show the images to the jury and the public on a blank wall.

One wonders if the tapping plus the tech breakdown topping off the Parade of Fraud is leaving the jurors numb–or wanting to jump into the well above, even if there is no bottom. CNBC, Wall Street Journal (15 Oct), 5KPIX

TTA’s earlier coverage: Chapter 6, Chapter 5, Chapter 4 (w/comment from Malcolm Fisk), Chapter 3, Chapter 2, Chapter 1

To be continued….

 

 

The Theranos Story, ch. 36: Their money–and time–are running out

February 22, 2017 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/jacobs-well-texas-woe1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A garage sale soon for Theranos? A report in the Wall Street Journal, citing sources on a January investor call, revealed that Theranos has $200 million on hand, but zero revenue in 2015 and 2016. $200 million on hand sounds like–and is–a lot. But Theranos is, once again, oh so special. It’s less than 25 percent of their over $900 million raise. They’ve made no money in the past two years and are likely to make none in 2017 with an unapproved miniLab. Their CEO cannot run a lab by Federal action. They’ve laid off all but 200+ employees, all of whom with any shred of intelligence are job hunting. Then think of all the lawsuits: Walgreens Boots seeking to claw back its $140 million, individual and class actions on behalf of other investors, and the looming Arizona state fraud action. It’s a mere pittance when Theranos has to hire armies of attorneys who charge Billable Hours Galore and will likely lose some if not all of the lawsuits. This Editor is making an educated guess that at least one legal team is working on a bankruptcy filing. Fortune, TechCrunch, Business Insider

Forbes, like TechCrunch once a hyper-overdrive cheerleader for Ms Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, offers up a profile of John P.A. Ioannidis, MD, DSC who holds the C.F. Rehnborg Chair in Disease at Stanford University and is director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center at the School of Medicine. Dr Ioannidis, according to the article, was the first to raise questions about Theranos’ methodology based on the obvious–that Theranos had published nothing in scientific journals. Theranos’ general counsel then reached out to suggest co-authoring an article with Ms Holmes in a major journal. Per Dr Ioannidis, it would support “the company view that FDA clearance offered the highest possible level of evidence for any diagnostics blood test technology.” They also said, “recant your existing views and writings about these misgivings.” He did neither, to his credit. The article interestingly does not explore the heat he, in as prestigious a position as he was, must have received, based on the close ties this Editor and others have noted between Stanford and Ms Holmes. Hat tip to Bill Oravecz of Stone Health Innovations

“This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.” T.S. Eliot puts a fine point on a Hollow Company, indeed.

See here for the 35 previous TTA chapters in this Continuing, Consistently Amazing Saga.

Possible early detection test for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)

April 6, 2015 | by

A research study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US) presents the results of screening 14 retired professional American football players with suspected CTE. Using a tau-sensitive brain imaging agent, [F-18]FDDNP, the California and Illinois-based researchers were able to detect the abnormal accumulation of tau and other proteins, in the distinct CTE pattern, in the brains of living subjects who had received, during their playing careers, multiple concussions and head trauma. Of the 14, one had been diagnosed with dementia, 12 with mild cognitive impairment and one with no symptoms. Previous studies, such as Robert Stern, MD‘s pathfinding research at Boston University and for the NFL (see below), have been primarily post-mortem on brains donated for research, although Dr Stern’s last presentation at NYC MedTech and Inga Koerte, MD of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) have also used brain scan information on live subjects in their studies.

Where this differs is that the imaging agent injected binds to the tau  (more…)