Surgeon accused of faking study resigns

ST. LOUIS, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- A surgeon accused of faking a study on a bone growth drug used to treat wounded Iraq war veterans has resigned from a St. Louis university, the school said.

Dr. Timothy Kuklo, a former U.S. Army surgeon, "voluntarily" resigned from Washington University, effective Sept. 30, and "will have no clinical, research or educational duties for the university between now and that date," a spokeswoman for the university's medical school said in a statement.

Kuklo, 48, was placed on leave in May after Army investigators alleged he had overstated the benefits of the drug Infuse, made by Medtronic Inc., while working at Walter Reed Army Medical Center before joining Washington University in 2006.

Army investigators said he also forged the signatures of four study co-authors.

The controversy picked up more steam when it became known Medtronic had paid Kuklo more than $800,000 in consulting fees in the last few years, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The British Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery retracted the study. Medtronic suspended Kuklo's consulting contract.

Kuklo, who has not commented publicly on the matter, put his 9,500-square-foot house in Wildwood, Mo., near St. Louis, up for sale for $2.7 million last month, real estate records show, the newspaper said.