Boldt: the great pretender.

Joachim Boldt was a prominent German anaesthetist with an international research reputation. He was regarded as a leading specialist in intravenous fluid management and was an advocate for the use of colloids, particularly hydroxyethyl starch solutions, to boost blood volume during surgery. However, a lengthy investigation has led to 88 out of the 102 studies that Boldt has published since 1999 being withdrawn from the medical literature. He has been found guilty of research misconduct, including failure to acquire ethical approval and fabrication of study data, and sacked from his position as professor at Klinikum Ludwigshafen, a large teaching hospital in Ludwigshafen, Germany, where he carried out his research. The retraction of such a large body of work has had far reaching effects on clinical practice, research oversight, and editorial policies. Deception unmasked