Fellow Alleges Error In K-School Report

A former research fellow at the Kennedy School's Energy and Environmental Policy Center (EEPC) said this week he lost his job in part because he questioned the "integrity" of the data in another scholar's federally sponsored project.

The researcher, Armando Garsd, claimed this week that Professor of Environmental Health John D. Spengler removed him from an energy study shortly after he pointed out errors in a separate federal air pollution study that Spengler co-authored.

Garsd's new assertions do not appear in the 1987 complaint he filed against Harvard in Massachusetts Superior Court, seeking more than $100,000 in damages.

The complaint charges that Spengler dismissed him from the energy study, sponsored by two Spanish electric companies, because Garsd complained that the EEPC was diverting their money from the project.

Garsd's complaint discussed only the Spanish study. But this week he said Spengler may also have wished to dismiss him because he questioned the air pollution figures.

"I believe that one of the reasons that prompted my termination is that Dr. Spengler was very uncomfortable with my questions," said Garsd.

Garsd served as project manager and co-principal investigator on the Spanish energy study. Spengler, who was the other principal investigator in that study, removed Garsd from it in September, 1986.

In a memo telling Garsd of his dismissal, Spengler charged that the researcher had entered his office and read private correspondence. Garsd says he looked through the files to find a document Spengler had asked for, and that he often used his colleague's office.

Memos

Garsd said this week that Spengler asked him to analyze the air pollution data in 1985. When he discovered errors, in mid-1986, he said he wrote between eight and 10 memos to Spengler describing them. Spengler fired him from the Spanish energy project in September, 1986.

The air pollution study was funded jointly by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institute of Environmental Health. An EPA spokesperson said it is used to set national ambient air quality standards.

Spengler is out of the country and could not be reached for the comment. Other University officials have refused to comment on Garsd's allegations because the suit is still pending.

In a memo dated April 25, 1986, released byRona W. Goodman, Garsd's attorney, Garsd calledthe EPA study's statistical quality "deplorable"and suggested a review of the calculations.

In particular, Garsd said in the memo that someof the figures on sulfuric acid levels in onecity's air suddenly dropped, suggesting arecording error.

"Obviously (now obviously!), the first threemonths of observations differ from the rest by afactor of 10," the memo reads in part. Itconcludes, "I shudder to think that other casesmight go unnoticed if we don't take action."

"I asked for a data audit," he said last week."I insisted on it. I wrote to Dr. Spengler sayingthat whatever went into open literature should beverified and accounted for." Garsd said Spenglerdid not respond to any of the memos that he wrote.

Bruce C. Jordan, a spokesperson for the EPA,said yesterday that he knew of no problems withthe project, known as the Six City Study.

Although he said he did not know of Garsd'sallegations, Jordan noted that differentresearchers often interpret data in differentways. The controversy over the supposed errors, hesaid, might have been the result of amisunderstanding.

"There have been occasions in the past whensomeone does statistical analysis, and someoneelse comes along and takes a different approach,"Jordan said.

But Jordan acknowledged that the study couldcontain some significant errors. "There is apossibility that someone may have found somethingthat has brought into question what has been donein the past," he said