Medic suspended after faking results of diabetic research

A DOCTOR who faked the results of a clinical trial involving Muslim diabetics who fast during Ramadam has been banned from practising for a year.

Dr Devasenan Devendra lied repeatedly to drugs giant Noarvtis after claiming to have recruited 69 subjects for the 2009 trial in Brent when the real number was just six.

The General Medical Council (GMC) heard researchers became suspicious after the first four ‘patient diaries’ he submitted were riddled with inconsistencies and written in his own handwriting.

The lying NHS consultant first claimed records had been stolen in a burglary but then confessed to the deception after they demanded proof that the subjects existed.

Devendra, 41, was suspended for a year from practising medicine in the UK after the GMC ruled that behaviour like his ‘undermines the trust that both the public and the profession have in medicine as a science’.

During the month-long summer fasting, Muslims refrain from eating and drinking during hours of daylight.

Novartis’ study had sought to test the effectiveness of two different treatments designed to help fasting diabetics manage their blood sugar.

The research was later binned, having run up more than �80,000 in costs, and if the false data had been used it could ultimately have led to the development of an unsafe drug, the panel heard.

Devendra admitted tricking Novartis researchers and also pleaded guilty to a series of other charges relating to his work in the capital’s diabetes clinics.

The suspension order will take effect from next month and it will then be illegal for Devendra to work as a doctor anywhere in the UK for 12 months.

Before he returns to work, he will need to prove that he has kept up-to-date with any medical advances that occur during his suspension.