Nobel Laureate’s Data Target of Probe

WASHINGTON — A congressional panel looking into scientific fraud said Thursday the Secret Service found “significant” alterations in notebooks used to support a paper co-authored by Nobel Prize-winning biologist David Baltimore.

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said the Secret Service probe “confirmed that the data and authenticity of parts of the key notebook were questionable.”

But Baltimore countered that nothing uncovered by the Secret Service indicates wrongdoing or would change the scientific conclusions of his research.

Dingell said entries purported to have been recorded in 1984 and 1985 were actually made in the spring of 1986--after the controversial paper, describing mouse experiments on genetic control of the immune system, had already been published.