New Delhi: Author and Doctor Cyriac Abby Philips, popularly known as LiverDoc, has called out the papers published under the government’s SUTRA-PIC programme on cow urine research by IITs. He also emailed Springer Nature and ACS Publications – two journals that published the papers from the cow research – with concerns about research integrity, and received affirmative responses.
“Research Integrity team at Springer Nature has taken cognisance of the matter. Investigations will begin soon,” said LiverDoc in a post on X.
The paper regarding which he emailed the journal was titled ‘Metabolomic Profiling of Cow Urine of Various Breeds’. It was published by scientist Abhishek Dhoble from IIT-BHU in 2025, under the ‘Scientific Utilisation through Research Augmentation – Prime Products from Cows’ (SUTRA-PIC) programme.
ThePrint reported that the Modi government allocated Rs 98 crore for cow research under SUTRA-PIC. When the papers were published, LiverDoc began investigating for scientific falsification and highlighted the issues on X.
In an email to ThePrint, Springer Nature said that due to the “nature of the issue”, the complaint has been escalated to the Springer Nature Research Integrity Group (SNRIG), which will conduct the proper investigation and provide options for resolution.
“Springer Nature is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and as such all our investigations are conducted in accordance with relevant COPE guidelines. These investigations can take some time owing to the number of different parties we must liaise with,” said the publisher to ThePrint.
According to the paper’s abstract, cow urine is important as an agricultural and medicinal product across India, and the scientists explore the actual chemical compounds present in the urine of seven different breeds of Indian cows.
“The paper is a third-rate publication with poorly performed, grossly misinterpreted and falsified results,” said LiverDoc.
The authors identified compounds like ethanone, cresol, bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, phenol, eicosane, and pentanol in cow urine, claiming they could be used for “new product developments, across diversified fields.”
“The researchers mistook common lab contaminants, like plastic chemicals and solvents, for natural cow urine compounds,” said LiverDoc.
The paper was accepted for publication on 19 June 2025 and was published a month later by the British and German-based publisher Springer Nature.
In his X post, LiverDoc said he conducted an ‘exhaustive’ peer review of the paper after it was published; he found that the authors ignored lab contamination in their results, had contradictory results in the paper versus the data, and even made fake health claims in their results. He also added that the paper did not have basic statistical analysis, and only tested one cow per breed for its results.
“The paper claims to have found impossible synthetic chemicals in the urine, such as a banned pesticide, human prescription drugs, and toxic metals,” said LiverDoc’s post. “This shows the authors blindly trusted computer software without checking.”
ThePrint reached out to the authors of the study—Jeetesh Kushwaha, Yashpal Singh, M. S. Mahesh, Sushil Kumar Yadav, Pratik N. Sheth, along with Dhoble—for a response, but they chose not to comment. They are reserving their responses for if the Journal chooses to reach out to them.
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Emails about research integrity
LiverDoc on X said he has been analysing all 10 published papers under the SUTRA-PIC project about cow research. He also studied one published by IIT Roorkee, which claims that ‘Ayurvedic’ cow urine has significant antiviral activity against the Chikungunya virus.
“I am truly disappointed to notice that most of these publications have been poorly peer-reviewed. I do not know how they got through such journals of repute,” said LiverDoc.
After the IIT Roorkee paper was published on 20 June, LiverDoc decided to email the publisher, ACS Agricultural Science and Technology Journal, with concerns about the integrity of the work. The journal will now review his concerns and begin its investigations accordingly.
“This is public (tax) money spent on fraud and deception to uphold a whole pseudoscience industry in India. Shameful,” said LiverDoc.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
Taking the piss!!
Research by IIT? have they lost their mind?
Turning the clock back by 80-90 years and resembling then Germany??
Appeasement of political leaders by scientists only devalues the institutions.