On the same day the story was published, the university launched an investigation in Tessier-Lavigne investigation and the seven years of alleged scientific misconduct detailed in the Stanford Daily article.
“It was pretty surprising,” said Stanford Daily editor-in-chief Sam Catania. “I can’t say I expected the board to act quickly.” But the start of the investigation, he said, “became just another news event for us.” Baker continued to cover the story, revealing possible image manipulation in additional papers co-authored with Tessier-Lavigne. He also reported on calls to the university president to lower and the expansion of the group of individuals who would be investigating allegations of scientific misconduct. (You can read all of Stanford Daily’s coverage here.)
On February 17, three days before the Polk Prize winners were announced, Baker posted another massive story revealing allegations that Tessier-Lavigne had failed to make public findings of falsified data in a 2009 paper that identified a potential cause of brain degeneration in Alzheimer’s patients (of which he was lead author).
His only in-person interaction with Tessier-Lavigne was brief, Baker said. He approached the university president shortly after sending him an email requesting comment for the story about the alleged cover-up of falsified Alzheimer’s data. “I walked up to him. I just said, ‘Hello,’ and he said, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah. I have received your letter. I hope to be in contact. I’m in a hurry.
“I started to say something and he closed his car door in the middle of my sentence,” Baker continued. “And, of course, he didn’t respond to us. His attorney did.”
Shortly after the Alzheimer’s story was published, Tessier-Lavigne sent a letter to Stanford Faculty and Staff attacking the student newspaper’s reports, calling them “full of falsehoods.”
Tessier-Lavigne’s letter solidified Baker’s conviction that his stories would never have been published if the Stanford Daily were not an organization that operated outside the control of the academic institution. (The newspaper celebrates the 50th anniversary of its independence from the university this year.) “There’s too much at stake,” Baker said. “The person we write about is literally in charge of all of us.”
Both the Stanford Daily reporter and editor-in-chief avoid questions about the impact their research could have on Tessier-Lavigne’s tenure as university president.
“We just want to report the facts and we want to do it right. That’s the most important thing for us,” Catania said. “You know, no matter what happens, if at the end of the day we were fair, accurate and thorough. To me, that will be ‘mission accomplished’ for the Daily.”
For his part, Baker said he just wants to get “to the bottom of exactly what happened.” He added: “I try not to think too much about what’s going to happen based on all of this. What I’ve spent the most time thinking about is making sure we get it right and that it’s as complete as possible. I’m not in charge of making judgments; other people will come to their conclusions. So my only job here is to just move forward and find out what’s really there.”
