Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Research Wrongdoing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Research Wrongdoing. Show all posts

Friday, August 22, 2014

Retractions in the scientific literature: is the incidence of research fraud increasing?

By R. Grant Steen
J Med Ethics 2011; 37:249-253 doi:10.1136/jme.2010.040923

Abstract

Scientific papers are retracted for many reasons including fraud (data fabrication or falsification) or error (plagiarism, scientific mistake, ethical problems). Growing attention to fraud in the lay press suggests that the incidence of fraud is increasing.

Introduction

Accusations that research is tainted by bias have become commonplace in the news media. The ClimateGate scandal arose when climate change critics hacked into a research database at the University of East Anglia, evaluated the data without authorisation and went public with accusations that data had been selectively published and perhaps even falsified.1 More recently, a scientist at Harvard has been accused of biasing or falsifying data that show tamarin monkeys can learn algebraic rules.

The entire article is here.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Corruption of Peer Review Is Harming Scientific Credibility

By Hank Campbell
The Wall Street Journal
Originally published July 13, 2013

Academic publishing was rocked by the news on July 8 that a company called Sage Publications is retracting 60 papers from its Journal of Vibration and Control, about the science of acoustics. The company said a researcher in Taiwan and others had exploited peer review so that certain papers were sure to get a positive review for placement in the journal. In one case, a paper's author gave glowing reviews to his own work using phony names.

Acoustics is an important field. But in biomedicine faulty research and a dubious peer-review process can have life-or-death consequences. In June, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and responsible for $30 billion in annual government-funded research, held a meeting to discuss ways to ensure that more published scientific studies and results are accurate.

The entire article is here.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Crack Down on Scientific Fraudsters

By Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky
The New York Times
Originally published July 10, 2014

DONG-PYOU HAN needed impressive lab results to help his team at Iowa State University move forward with its work on an AIDS vaccine — and to continue receiving millions of dollars in federal grants. So Dr. Han did what many scientists are probably tempted to do, but don’t: He faked the tests, spiking rabbit blood with human proteins to make it appear that the animals were responding to the vaccine to fight H.I.V.

The reason you’re reading about this story, and not about the glowing success of the therapy, is that Dr. Han was caught.

The entire story is here.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

La Trobe 'torture' study anguish

By Tim Elliott
theage.com.au
Originally published April 26, 2012

Diane Blackwell as university student
IN 1973, arts student Dianne Backwell tortured her roommate to death. Or so she thought.

Ms Backwell, then a 19-year-old student at La Trobe University, believed she was taking part in research into the effect of punishment on learning. But the friend whose screams she heard from another room every time she pushed a button was only pretending to receive electric shocks.

Nonetheless, the experiment, record of which has only now come to light, traumatised Ms Backwell for years. According to a new book, Behind the Shock Machine, by Melbourne psychologist Gina Perry, Ms Backwell was one of about 200 La Trobe students who took part in 1973 and 1974 in controversial experiments conducted by the university's psychology department.

The experiments were modelled on the notorious ''obedience tests'' carried out by US psychologist Stanley Milgram at Yale University in 1961, in which participants were ordered to shock students in another room, even when they believed it would kill them.

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Gary Schoener for this story.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

UConn Investigation Finds That Health Researcher Fabricated Data

By Tom Bartlett
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published January 11, 2012

Dipak K. Das
A three-year investigation by the University of Connecticut has found that the director of its Cardiovascular Research Center falsified and fabricated data at least 145 times, in some cases digitally manipulating images using PhotoShop.

The researcher, Dipak K. Das, is best known for his work on resveratrol, a compound present in grapes and other foods that some research suggests can have beneficial effects on the heart and could slow aging, though recent studies have cast doubt on the latter claim.

The university has begun a process to dismiss Das, who has tenure.

Das has been quoted regularly in news articles, usually talking about resveratrol, and his papers have been cited often, as the blog Retraction Watch points out. But the importance of his research is unclear.

David Sinclair, a professor of pathology at Harvard University who is known for his discovery that resveratrol appears to extend the life of mice and fruit flies, said he had not heard of Das. “I’ve not worked with him,” Sinclair wrote in an e-mail. “Looking through it, the work is generally not published in leading molecular-biology journals.”

The entire article is here.

Another article from The New York Times is here.

Monday, January 16, 2012

British science needs 'integrity overhaul’

Medical Academics Voice Concern Over Research Misconduct
By Daniel Cressey
Nature

British scientists are fundamentally failing to deal with research misconduct, which is widespread in the country, leading experts have warned.

At a conference in London yesterday, participants were united in calling for more action on the issue.

“There is a recognition that we have a problem,” said Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and one of the driving forces behind the meeting.

Coinciding with the meeting, a BMJ survey of 2,782 doctors and medical academics showed that 13% claimed to have firsthand knowledge of “inappropriately adjusting, excluding, altering or fabricating data”. Six per cent said that they were aware of cases of possible research misconduct at their institutions that they thought had not been properly investigated.

Research-integrity issues in the United Kingdom have long been fretted over. Last year the House of Commons science and technology select committee said that they found “the general oversight of research integrity in the UK to be unsatisfactory”. Similar concerns have been raised by others, going back more than a decade.

Elizabeth Wager, chairwoman of the international Committee on Publication Ethics, warned the meeting that one US editor had told her that UK institutions are the worst to deal with in cases of suspected misconduct. “Our reputation in the world is not looking good,” she said.

She added that although the concern is being driven mainly by medical researchers, their worries apply to other scientific fields.

UK mechanisms for ensuring ethical conduct in research “need to be strengthened”, concluded a communiqué from the meeting. In addition, the meeting said, the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) should be enhanced, and ongoing funding for it should be secured. (At one point last year, the future financing of UKRIO was unclear, although it now seems to be secure.)

The entire sotry can be found here.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Responding to Research Wrongdoing: A User-Friendly Guide

We have added a link to our "Ethics Resources, Guides, and Guidelines" page. 

The entire guide can be found here as well.  In 2010, this guide won an award for Innovation from the Health Improvement Institute for Excellence in Human Research Protection.

The Foreword is posted to give an idea of what is in the guide.

Foreword

Every once in awhile a product comes along that is destined to make a difference. This Guide is such a product. Informed by data generated through surveys and interviews involving more than 2,000 scientists, the Guide gives voice to those researchers willing, some with eagerness and others with relief, to share their stories publicly in their own words. There are stories from scientists who want to do the right thing, but are unsure how to go about it or concerned about negative consequences for them or their junior colleagues. There are accounts from researchers who took action, and are keen to share their successful strategies with others. On the flip side, there are those who hesitated and now lament not having guidance that might have altered the course of past events.

In response to these compelling stories, the Guide adopts a problem-solving approach that looks for ways to preempt wrongdoing in research, to create options for scientists faced with suspicions or evidence of irresponsible science, and to assist researchers in working through those options in a manner that reinforces the integrity of the science without risking career or friendships. The Guide pulls no punches. While it is intended to help researchers achieve a successful resolution of what are often very messy matters, it recognizes that this may not always be possible. It is this honest assessment that will appeal to scientists looking for fair-minded and useful guidance, not pious prescriptions that bear no resemblance to the real world.

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the research reported in the Guide is that scientists included in the study proclaimed "overwhelming support for the concept of a researcher’s individual responsibility to intervene when suspecting wrongdoing, especially if it rises to the level of a ‘serious nature’ (94%)." Surely, there is no argument that reporting research wrongdoing and preserving the integrity of the research record will depend largely on the willingness of individuals to intervene. Recognition of one’s professional responsibility to act is a necessary step in that direction, but it is not enough. What is also needed is a good compass that points in the right direction, warns of hazardous terrain ahead, locates where support is available, and helps people assess and reason through their choices. Just as the compass greatly improved the safety and efficiency of travel dating back to the 11th century, so too will this Guide greatly help scientists navigate the challenges they encounter when taking the moral high ground.

Mark S. Frankel
Director, Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law Program
American Association for the Advancement of Science

Dr. Frankel served as a consultant to the authors of the Guide.