It isn't the first time this has happened and it will not be the last.
Far more damaging was the article by Andrew Wakefield published in The Lancet and subsequently repudiated that started the whol anti-vax movement and several other eminent scientists have been found to have fabricated someof their results.
I am not defending it and academics are always on the look out for it, but no profession is free from charlatans, like that surgeon who is currently serving a long sentence for damaging and unnecessary breats operations on 100s of women, then there are crooked lawyers, abusing teachers. Name the profession and you will find the crooked/criminal/ incompetent, no profession is perfect.
Wicked Little Letters? (funny film of a long-forgotten case)