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Toth moved to British Columbia, where he is now working as a neurologist at Burnaby Hospital.

Toth declined to be interviewed for this story, and responded to questions with a short email that blames his staff for the data manipulation.

I can’t say whether it’s an official record, but we haven’t seen anyone else in Canada retract that many papers since we launched in 2010

He said he spread himself “too thin” in Calgary and “failed to supervise” his laboratory activities properly. “I was unable to determine that data provided to me was not performed in proper fashion,” says Toth.

The university is more forthcoming. In late 2012 a journal reviewing one of Toth’s studies “found suspicious data and asked the university to undertake a formal investigation,” says Dr. Glenda MacQueen, vice-dean of the University of Calgary’s medical school.

“The faculty did investigate, which led to the retraction of the submitted paper and one paper already published,” MacQueen said in an email response to questions.

Outside observers were, however, more thorough than the faculty in assessing the problems with Toth’s studies. “Subsequently, Retraction Watch identified other questionable data” and a complaint triggered a university “Committee of Investigation” process that began in May 2013, MacQueen said.

The committee concluded in March 2014 that “Toth did not have appropriate oversight of the data coming out of his lab,” said MacQueen. “The result was a finding of a breach of research integrity.”

MacQueen said the investigators “could neither verify nor dispute” whether Toth’s lab staff provided him with figures that were “already manipulated without his knowledge; however, they found that his actions reflect a failure to adequately supervise and examine the work conducted in his lab.”