Following is a timeline for the Gillberg affair.
1997-03-20 | Gillberg co-authors an article (with Sophie Ekman) in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter claiming that one in ten Swedish children has DAMP or similar neuropsychiatric problems. |
2000-09-10 | Eva Kärfve publishes her book on DAMP: Hjärnspöken—DAMP och hotet mor folkhälsan. |
2000-11-01 | Gillberg and his colleague Peder Rasmussen publish an article in Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry about their psychiatric study of some Gothenburg children. |
2002-02-19 | Kärfve requests that she be allowed access to some of the research material of Gillberg's study on Gothenburg children. |
2002-02-27 | Kärfve's request is refused. |
2002-04-13 | Leif Elinder petitions GU [Gothenburg University] to investigate Gillberg's study for fraud. |
2002-06-01 | The court instructs GU to reconsider Kärfve's request for access to research material. |
2002-06-03 | The GU Ethics Committee dismisses Elinder's petition for a fraud investigation. |
2002-06-25 | Kärfve petitions GU to investigate Gillberg's study for fraud. [Note: this is separate from her request for access to research material.] |
2002-07-09 | Elinder requests that GU allow him access to some of the research material. [Note: this is separate from his petition to GU for a fraud investigation.] |
2002-08-30 | GU refuses Elinder's request. |
2002-09-10 | GU refuses Kärfve's request for access to research material (after reconsidering it, as per the instructions of the court on 2002-06-01). |
2003-02-06 | The court rules that the research material must be made available for scrutiny to Elinder and Kärfve. |
2003-02-12 | Gillberg and Rasmussen ask GU to request outside experts to scrutinize their research. |
2003-02-14 | The university requests the SRC [Swedish Research Council] to constitute a panel to scrutinize the research. |
2003-02-18 | The SRC constitutes a panel, comprising three professors. |
2003-02-24 | The GU Ethics Committee votes 3-1 to reject Kärfve's petition for a fraud investigation. |
2003-03-07 | Ove Lundgren spends four hours inspecting some of the research material. |
2003-03-21 | Gillberg and Rasmussen tell GU that the Chairman of the Ethics Committee has scrutinized the research material and exonerated them of fraud, and so no further investigation (such as by the SRC) is needed. |
2003-04-04 | The Supreme Administrative Court dismisses an appeal by GU against the court decision of 2003-02-06. |
2003-04-07 | Pursuant to the court order, GU stipulates restrictions on how Elinder and Kärfve will be allowed to access the research material. |
2003-06-10 | The Parliamentary Ombudsman finds that in its handling of Elinder's requests for access to the research material, GU acted in ways that are “completely unacceptable” and that “violated basic civil rights according to law”. |
2003-06-11 | The Parliamentary Ombudsman finds similarly against GU for its actions in handling Kärfve's requests for access to the research material. |
2003-08-11 | The restrictions that GU stipulated are rejected by the court on the ground that they were unreasonable (they would have made scrutiny impossible); the court also reaffirms its previous decision to make the research material available. |
2003-09-01 | Gunnar Svedberg, the acting rector of GU, sends a letter to Elinder and Kärfve, saying that he will not enforce the decision of the court, because it would cause mental stress to Gillberg and colleagues. |
2003-09-09 | Bo Samuelsson formally steps down as rector of GU, and is replaced by Svedberg. |
2003-11-05 | The Supreme Administrative Court dismisses an appeal from Gillberg against the lower court's decision of 2003-08-11. |
2004-01-10 | The Chairman of the Board of GU, Arne Wittlöf, meets with the Gillberg group, to discuss having the SRC scrutinize the research; Gillberg refuses to accept such scrutiny. |
2004-01-22 | The Board of GU raises further objections to having the research material scrutinized by Elinder and Kärfve. |
2004-05-04 | The court rules that the further objections raised by GU are invalid and that the research material must be made available for scrutiny to Elinder and Kärfve. |
2004-05-09 | Over the weekend ending May 9th, the research material is destroyed by three of Gillberg's co-workers: Rasmussen, Carina Gillberg (Gillberg's wife), and Kerstin Lamberg (a university administrator). |
2005-04-13 | The members of the Ethics Committee publish a letter (in Dagens Medicin) denying that they had either acquitted Gillberg of research fraud or investigated for research fraud. |
2005-06-27 | Gillberg and Svedberg are convicted by a criminal court for misuse of office. |
2006-02-08 | The convictions of Gillberg and Svedberg are upheld by the Court of Appeal. |
2006-03-17 | Rasmussen, Carina Gillberg, and Lamberg, are convicted by a criminal court for destroying government documents. |
2006-04-25 | The Supreme Court of Sweden says that it will not hear Gillberg's appeal of his conviction. |
2006-07-01 | Pam Fredman replaces Svedberg as the rector of GU. She had been Dean of the Sahlgrenska Academy (i.e. Faculty of Health Sciences), where Gillberg is a professor, since 2004. |
2006-11-21 | Lundgren informs Douglas Keenan (your author) that there were some discrepancies in the files that he saw during his four-hour inspection; the discrepancies are consistent with what would be expected according to the allegations of Kärfve and Elinder. |