Harvard Psychiatrist Quits After Plagiarism Charge
BOSTON — A former director of the National Institute of Mental Health has resigned as a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in the wake of a university committee’s determination that he committed plagiarism, Harvard officials said today.
Shervert Frazier resigned Nov. 23 as a professor and director of McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital affiliated with the university, according to a letter from Harvard Medical School Dean Daniel C. Tosteson to the faculty.
The letter, made public today, says a faculty committee investigating allegations of plagiarism “concluded that plagiarism occurred in four papers written by Dr. Frazier and published between 1966 and 1975.”
Frazier was a professor of psychiatry at Harvard from 1972 until 1984, when he left to become director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Rockville, Md. He held that post for about two years before returning to Harvard.
‘Search for Truth’
Harvard spokesman Peter Costa said neither Frazier nor Tosteson was available for comment today.
“The university takes very seriously any charges of plagiarism because that’s what we’re about--the search for truth and knowledge,” Costa said.
None of the four papers containing plagiarized material reported original research data, according to Tosteson’s letter to the faculty.
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