Doug Sipp's CV: Ex-Trucking Supervisor Impersonates a Bioethicist

Thanks to a reader of the blog, I have been forwarded Doug Sipp's CV. Like Doug, I won’t fully fact check this information. If you’re a reporter, you may want to ask Sipp directly to confirm or refute this CV, but based on what I can find on-line most of it looks about right.

Doug is frequently vague when asked about his background. Many reporters have claimed that he’s a “researcher” with the implication that he hold a Ph.D. or that he conducts stem cell research. Others merely point to the fact that he works for an academic entrepreneurial research centre as proof that he must be an academic himself. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Take a look:


Date of Birth:  01/04/1965 (47 years old)

WorkHistory: 
-RIKEN CDB /2002 – Present /Manager, Office for Research Communications / Kobe,Hyogo, Japan (conducts stem cell policy and ethics research & manages the Office for Research Communications (actually called ‘Unit Leader’)

-Nature Japan (periodical) / 2000 – 2002 / Freelance Translator followed by Marketing Manager

-Arkitek Studios, Inc. (multi-media software development company) / IndependentContractor
-NEC (consultant)

-Quality Rock Products, Inc.  (Trucking Supervisor)

Education:  B.A. in English / RUTGERS -THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NJ -NEW BRUNSWICK / Major Course(s) of Study:09/02/1987 to 05/15/1991

Ouch! This is pretty embarrassing! First Doug Sipp majored in English and has no advanced degree whatsoever. He also has no science education. No degree or training in bioethics.

Doug loves to poke fun at people’s past misfortunes or how they came into stem cells with very little direct training or qualifications. For example, he once pointed to some poor bugger's adolescent pot bust as proof of bad character. He has also ridiculed legitimate Ph.D.'s and the like for their prior jobs outside of stem cells. So I now get it, Doug Sipp's past is so embarrassing that the best defence is a good offence! Trucking supervisor? Crikey!

Since Doug loves to pull Google street views on addresses, this is the site of his first job:










Did he work somewhere down that beastly dirt road? Did any of these jobs from the one down this dirt path to NEC have anything to do with stem cells? Cell biology? Medical research? Clinical research? Medicine? Bioethics? Anything?

Finally he went to work for Nature (which has something to do with stem cells), but he wasn’t even a science writer, but a translator and later a marketing manager? Marketing manager? Yes, he was merely some guy trying to sell magazines.

Maybe the blokes at RIKEN were daft enough to give Doug his first big break into the world of stem cells, but any reporter that quotes him now needs to place this biographical sketch somewhere in the article:

Mr. Sipp holds a four year English degree from Rutgers and has held a panoply of odd jobs like trucking supervisor, consultant, software independent contractor, translator, and marketing manager. He specifically holds no degrees in science or bioethics whatsoever. His opinions are therefore to be respected about as much as the guy down the street working at the local pub. He did tell us that he has great “life experience”.