SCIENCE science.org 4 FEBRUARY 2022 • VOL 375 ISSUE 6580 485

I

n 2013, a team led by Steven Newmaster,

a botanist at the University of Guelph

(UG), took a hard look at popular herbal

products such as echinacea, ginkgo

biloba, and St. John’s wort. The team

published a study that used DNA

barcoding—a system to identify species

using small, unique snippets of genetic

material—to test whether the bottles re-

ally contained what was printed on the label.

The results were troubling. Most of the

tested products contained different plants,

were larded with inert fillers, or were tainted

with contaminants that could cause liver and

colon damage, skin tumors, and other seri-

ous health problems. The paper, published in

BMC Medicine, received prominent attention

from The New York Times, CBC, and many

other media outlets. The findings “pissed me

off,” Newmaster told PBS’s Frontline. “I go in

to buy a product that I believe in, that I care

about and I pay a lot of money for, and it’s

not even in the bottle? Are you kidding me?”

His work inspired then–New York Attor-

ney General Eric Schneiderman to sponsor

a similar study conducted by James Schulte,

then at Clarkson University, who confirmed

that consumers were often misled. At

Schneiderman’s request, major retailers such

as GNC, Walgreens, and Walmart pledged

to pull suspect products from the shelves or

take other measures.

Almost overnight, Newmaster became an

authority on the verification of food and sup-

plement ingredients. He quickly went from in-

dustry adversary to ally, as major supplement -

makers hired companies he created to cer-

tify their products as authentic. In 2017,

Newmaster also founded the Natural Health

Products Research Alliance (NHPRA), a ven-

ture within UG that aims to improve certifi-

cation technologies for supplements. It raised

millions of dollars from herbal suppliers,

boosting UG’s finances and prestige.

But in an ironic twist, eight experts in DNA

barcoding and related fields now charge that

the 2013 paper that indicted an entire indus-

tr y and launched a new phase in Newmaster ’s

career is itself a fraud. In a 43-page allega-

tion letter, sent to UG in June 2021 and ob-

tained by Science, the researchers—from UG,

the University of Toronto, the University of

British Columbia, and Stanford University—

cited major problems in the study and two

others by Newmaster and collaborators.

“The data which underpin [the papers] are

missing, fraudulent, or plagiarized,” the let-

ter flatly stated. The group also charged that

Newmaster “recurrently failed to disclose

competing financial interests” in his papers.

The accusers include co-authors of two of

the suspect papers, who now say they believe

Newmaster misled them. “I felt that trust

was betrayed,” says one of them, John Fryxell,

executive director of the Biodiversity Insti-

tute of Ontario. One paper, which compared

the cost of DNA barcoding with traditional

methods for cataloging forest biodiversity,

was retracted last fall at the request of its

junior author, Ken Thompson, now a Stan-

ford postdoctoral fellow. The letter was also

signed by evolutionary biologist Paul Hebert,

sometimes called the “father of DNA barcod-

ing,” who directs UG’s Centre for Biodiversity

Genomics (CBG).

Newmaster did not respond to interview

requests or written questions. But in a de-

fense he sent to UG—which Science has also

obtained—he denied all charges. “I have

never committed data fabrication, falsifica-

tion, plagiarism, or inadequate acknowl-

edgment in the publications as claimed,”

Newmaster wrote. “I have never engaged

in any unethical activity or academic mis-

conduct.” He also said he had never made

money from his network of businesses.

An investigation by Science found the prob-

lems in Newmaster’s work go well beyond the

three papers. They include apparent fabrica-

tion, data manipulation, and plagiarism in

speeches, teaching, biographies, and schol-

arly writing. A review of thousands of pages

of Newmaster’s published papers, conference

speeches, slide decks, and training and pro-

motional videos, along with interviews with

two dozen current and former colleagues

or independent scientists and 16 regulatory

or research agencies, revealed a charismatic

and eloquent scientist who often exagger-

ated, fabulized his accomplishments, and

presented other researchers’ data as his own.

UG, which has been investigating the al-

legations since August 2021, declined to an-

swer questions about its own investigation or

Science’s findings, citing confidentiality rules.

Other UG scientists say university adminis-

trators repeatedly pressured them to stop

questioning Newmaster’s research. UG also

dismissed a detailed request for an investiga-

tion made by Thompson in 2020. Some now

fear university administrators will quash

the new accusations in a misguided attempt

to protect UG’s and their own reputations,

and the university’s share of funds raised by

Newmaster. UG declined to comment on

those concerns, as well.

“The 2013 herbal supplement paper re-

flects a pattern of deception and academic

misconduct. The university has chosen to

stand back for reasons that I don’t under-

stand,” Hebert says. “I am disturbed to sit in

a building where someone has been running

a fabrication mill.”

ON SOCIAL MEDIA, Newmaster described

himself as a scientific “explorer” and “ad-

venturer.” His Instagram page showed him

skiing double black diamond runs, riding

dog sleds, and inspecting tea fields in China.

(Newmaster’s Instagram account became

private after Science contacted him.)

According to his CV and LinkedIn page,

Newmaster joined UG’s faculty in 2001 or

2002, after earning a Ph.D. in environmen-

tal biology and ecology at the University of

Alberta, and became curator of an herbar-

ium housed at UG. His intrepid character,

personal appeal, and ability to put people

at ease charmed colleagues. Environmental

physiologist Patricia Wright, retired from

UG, describes him as “an upbeat, fun guy

that students really liked.”

Not long after Newmaster arrived, semi-

nal work by Hebert and others helped

launch DNA barcoding as an important re-

search tool with diverse applications such

as cataloging biodiversity and monitoring

water quality. Hebert raised funds to build

a small barcoding empire at UG, with scores

of researchers and two buildings, one of

which became home to the herbarium and

Newmaster’s personal lab. Hebert also co-

founded and serves as scientific director for

the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD),

a repository with millions of barcodes for

more than 300,000 named species.

Newmaster embraced the technology. He

has used it not only to authenticate medici-

nal plants, but also to study plant diversity

in Canada and India and catalog threatened

tree species. Much of the DNA work was

carried out by Subramanyam Ragupathy, a

botanist in Newmaster’s lab who did not re-

spond to requests for an interview.

In the 2013 supplement paper, Newmaster,

Ragupathy, and collaborators describe how

they derived DNA barcodes for 44 popular

herbal products and compared them with

barcodes from validated sources. The ex-

plosive results—most of the products had

DNA from herbs not on the label, and many

contained plants with “known toxicity”—

alarmed experts. “This suggests that the

problems are widespread and that qual-

ity control for many companies, whether

through ignorance, incompetence or dis-

honesty, is unacceptable,” nutritionist David

Schardt, then with the Center for Science in

the Public Interest, told The New York Times.

The paper drew criticism as well. A sting-

ing 2013 analysis in HerbalEGram—a jour-

nal of the American Botanical Council, a

“I have never

engaged in any unethical activity

or academic misconduct.”

Steven Newmaster, University of Guelph