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American Heart Association reviewing award to rocket scientist with eight retractions
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/10/22/exclusive-american-heart-association-reviewing-award-to-rocket-scientist-with-eight-retractions/The American Heart Association is reviewing its decision to give an award to the architect of a controversial theory that is the subject of eight retracted papers, Retraction Watch has learned. In the meantime, the researcher is using the award to contest several of the retractions.
The Paul Dudley White International Scholar Award “recognizes the team of authors with the highest-ranked scientific abstract from every participating country for each AHA scientific meeting,” according to the award website.
At its Basic Cardiovascular Sciences 2025 conference in July, the association gave the award for best abstract from India to work describing “Sanal flow choking” theory, which is named after lead author, V. R. Sanal Kumar, a professor of aerospace engineering at Amity University in New Delhi. As we have previously reported, some scientists have denounced the concept as “absolute nonsense” and “inaccurate and paradoxical” — and earlier this year, a journal said it “fundamentally violates” a law of thermodynamics.
. . .
Previous retractions don’t always get in the way of awards. As we wrote in 2018, Carlo Croce, a cancer researcher at The Ohio State University who lost several papers for image manipulation, was awarded over $300,000 from a charitable organization after decades of misconduct allegations.
The Paul Dudley White International Scholar Award “recognizes the team of authors with the highest-ranked scientific abstract from every participating country for each AHA scientific meeting,” according to the award website.
At its Basic Cardiovascular Sciences 2025 conference in July, the association gave the award for best abstract from India to work describing “Sanal flow choking” theory, which is named after lead author, V. R. Sanal Kumar, a professor of aerospace engineering at Amity University in New Delhi. As we have previously reported, some scientists have denounced the concept as “absolute nonsense” and “inaccurate and paradoxical” — and earlier this year, a journal said it “fundamentally violates” a law of thermodynamics.
. . .
Previous retractions don’t always get in the way of awards. As we wrote in 2018, Carlo Croce, a cancer researcher at The Ohio State University who lost several papers for image manipulation, was awarded over $300,000 from a charitable organization after decades of misconduct allegations.