The Fukushima report isn't the only interesting one to come out of Japan this week. The Retraction Watch blog has been following the case of one Dr. Yoshitaka Fujii from Toho University's medical school, who has published extensively in the field of anesthesia. Unfortunately, however, it seems that Dr. Fujii has not bothered to perform extensive research to create those publications. Toho University has now published the results of an investigation into Fujii's work, and found that the vast majority of the underlying "data" was simply made up.

Of 212 papers credited to the researcher, the investigation only found clear indications of supportive data for three. At least 172 of the rest are clearly based on fabricated data. Fujii apparently claimed his studies were all double-blind and performed at multiple institutions, factors that would make tracking down the underlying data more challenging. And, to make sure he had indications of collaborators at other institutions, he simply forged their signatures on papers he submitted.

Fujii slipped through the cracks partly because there was no obvious responsible party. The fraudulent results were spread across dozens of journals, contained authors from multiple institutions, and probably involved diverse sources of funding. Things only came to a head when the editors of the journal Anasesthesia hired an outside consultant to investigate instances of Fujii's work where problems were obvious for all to see: some of his published findings only had a one-in-1033 chance of being based on real data.

Assuming all of the fraudulent papers get retracted, Fujii will set a new record for the most retractions ever, more than doubling his closest competitor. At Retraction Watch, where they follow these issues closely, they're pondering whether anesthesia itself has a problem. Of over 2,000 papers that have been retracted over the last four decades, a full 13 percent have involved anesthesiologists.