Science | AAAS
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A few studies published recently, including ones in major medical journals The Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine caused quite a stir; the one in The Lancet caused a pause in some studies on hydroxychloroquine. However, it turns out these studies originate from a small and little known company called Surgisphere, which claims to have access to a large amount of hospital data. However, all three papers are coming under heavy scrutiny for anomalies.
Under this scrutiny it turns out that Surgisphere appears to be a very small company founded in 2008, and given it's known employees likely doesn't have the manpower or expertise to conduct these studies, although it claims to be using "AI" and advanced "machine learning". It was founded as a medical education company, providing textbooks. However, there is some doubt about the quality of these textbooks, and there is evidence of fake reviews used to sell them. How this small company somehow changed direction to acquire / develop the major database it claims to have seems very uncertain. There is considerable concern that this "database" is a scam.
It's founder and CEO, Sapan Desai, was until recently a cardiovascular surgeon, resigning from active medical practice in Feb this year "for family reasons". There are currently three outstanding medical malpractice suits against him from 2019; a spokesperson for Desai says they cannot coment on ongoing cases, but they are unfounded. Surgisphere also founded a medical journal, Journal of Surgical Radiology, which ran from 2010-2013 and was by its own claims vastly successful (one million views per month, no less), before Desai closed it down as he claimed he was too busy to run it.
It's not that I'm saying this guy definitely is a con-artist and his company is a fraud, but... it's got all the hallmarks of it. Hustling at niches, dodgy adverstising scams, low verifiability of quality of products / services, deeply improbable boasts. I wonder if Surgisphere could have kept nibbling away in this manner for years, but the problem with the type of person I suspect Desai is (delusions of grandeur) they can't help themselves, often overreach and bury themselves. But won't it have given him his 15 minutes of fame.