Elisabeth Bik will do anything to see fraud where there is none. Who does she serve ? Who controls her ? Debriefing with Matt Nachtrab

Elisabeth Bik is a "self-proclaimed fraud hunter", and has made a name for herself as a close associate of the french members that have harrassed the likes of Professeur Raoult in France.  France-Soir has called that groupe the "harcelosphere". This is a group of doctors, scientists and citizens who, since 2020, have been acting as propagandists for scientific misinformation, and have particularly distinguished themselves by their violent accusations against researchers Professor Didier Raoult' and the scientists of IHU (Institut Hospitalo Universitaire).  Stopping at nothing, they went so far as to accuse IHU researchers of fraud, calling on or referring to the pseudo-scientific work of Elisabeth Bik.  Elisabeth Bik is far from above suspicion, both in terms of the role she played as scientific director in the insurance fraud perpetrated by the American company uBiome, and in terms of her real motivations for chasing fraud.

In the paper, "The bitter being bit before the backlash"  Bik keeps seeing copy and paste everywhere, so she finds some, but they are not !  And it has been possible to demonstrate the fraud hunter's many errors. What she identifies and claims are frauds, are not. However, this is neither the first nor the last time, as US entrepreneur Matt Nachtrab had the opportunity to cross paths with Elisabeth Bik.  In fact, he wrote an article showing Bik's key role in launching Ubiome's fraudulent billing systems.  This corroborates the investigation we carried out into him in 2022, which concluded that Bik was far from above suspicion and that his role in harassing IHU researchers was far from clear. In 2021, IHU-Méditerranée filed a complaint against Bik for harassment and attempted extortion.

In this debriefing, Matt Nachtrab outlines his research into the role played by Elisabeth Bik, explaining what led him to investigate her role and how she uses her research (or the way it is used) of frauds to manipulate information about the Cassava Science company.
 

Several other points attracted our attention, such as the date on which Bik left uBiome. It's so unclear.  She publically states that it was the end of 2018, however at the beginning of 2019, she was still twiting as uBiome!

Contacted by France-Soir, an American scientist familiar with uBiome's business sector says: "Bik could only have made a deal with the uBiome investigators, her funding for her activity as a 'scientific fraud hunter' is totally obscure and comes close to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation". Bik denies this on social networks, however if it's as clear as her departure date from uBiome, that leaves plenty to wonder about. She didn't answer our questions on this particular point. On her past, a former uBiome employee does is explicit: "She couldn't have been unaware that, as scientific director, she was the scientific guarantor of uBiome's founders (now on the run in Germany, editor's note), if scientific integrity was really her priority, she should have retracted her scientific articles as a matter of principle".

Contacted by France-Soir on two occasions, she didn't find the time to answer, although she had the opportunity to address the issues. She does not hesitate to denigrate and defame publicly France-Soir by teaming up with french doctors who are part of the harcelosphere.

In fact, the fraud hunter, who likes to allege IHU frauds, is not prepared to be transparent about her many grey areas. Her scientific and legal horizons are darkening.

The questions we had for her are listed below. 

Questions for Mrs Bik

We're preparing an article on scientific integrity. Your name is mentioned in several articles. Before publishing our paper, I'd like to ask you a few questions:

1. Concerning uBiome:

• At uBiome, you published an article with the two founders. What was the reason for this?
• What was your exact start date at uBiome?
• Did you start working on the publication with the founders before your official start date at uBiome?
• Did you receive any remuneration on the paper before joining uBiome?
• What made you think that the founders cared more about money than science?
• Have you considered withdrawing your name from the papers you published with the founders of Ubiome? Where to retract?
• As a fraud expert, since you're aware of the implications of fraudulent activities at uBiome, why haven't you requested the withdrawal of articles you've authored or co-authored? When did you begin to have doubts?
• Why did you choose to publish corrections and articles with the founders after you left?
• What do you think of the editors' comments about expressing concern about the lack of clear thresholds for making a clinical interpretation of the Smart Gut results? Given that the founders have fled to Germany, should their other uBiome employees be held accountable?

2. About your departure from uBiome:

• Concerning your departure from uBiome, you state that you resigned from the company. When did you resign? Do you have any official confirmation of this?
• What were the conditions of your departure? Did you receive severance pay or did you participate in the January 2019 layoff?  
• Were you aware in December 2019 of the internal discussion about layoffs? Did you interact with the newly hired CFO?
• In January 2019, did you attend the JP Morgan Health Care conference, did you register as a uBiome employee? Did you enter into any form of agreement with authorities linked to the two founders to mitigate your role in the uBiome fraud?
• Would a proposed guilty plea by the FBI investigative team have been one you would have decided to take?

3. About Pubpeer:

Often, a series of poor-quality comments are entered on articles by the same authors with whom you raise concerns.  Have you ever corrected incorrect or frivolous comments on articles on pubpeer?

4. About your funding and donations on Patreon

• Your funding on Patreon has dropped considerably in the last year. Why is this? Why has it dropped by half?
• Is there a connection with the Cassava Sciences libel suit?
• Were you financed directly or indirectly by people involved in the libel suit or by hedge funds that sold Cassava Sciences shares.
• Can you disclose the list of people or institutions that stopped paying you from August to December 2022? https://www.reddit.com/r/SAVA_stock/s/Y9NEzJVNSF?

5. About your image analysis :

• What is the detailed process you use to assert fraud?
• Could there be errors due to poor-quality images in the articles you dispute?
• In this publication, you state that two areas have been duplicated

https://pubpeer.com/publications/6FDF7F2C43052BC67AC28590007D36

• You say that these two zones are duplicated. Can you explain in detail why? Could there be a misinterpretation?

In the article, Bik's numerous errors are demonstrated.