Scientific Misconduct: Cleaning Up the Paper Trail_SCIENCE

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From: VERACARE <veracare@...>

Date: April 13, 2006 3:48:39 PM EDT

VERACARE <veracare@...>

Subject: Scientific Misconduct: Cleaning Up the Paper

Trail_SCIENCE

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP)

Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and

Accountability

http://www.ahrp.org/cms/

FYI

The APRIL 7, 2006 issue of SCIENCE Magazine contains

one of the most important articles that tackles

research fraud and the tolerant manner with which the

academic community lives with research fraud,

pretending that tainted research reports that enter

the body of scientific literature have no adverse

influence. In fact, one of the examples cited by

Science is someone who, perhaps unnecessarily,

underwent surgery on his tongue because of a

fraudulent report by a Norwegian oncologist warned

about a high risk of cancer.

At least one journal editor validates our frequently

expressed view that it is the scientific journals'

responsibility to guard against fraud and to expunge

fraudulent reports from the scientific literature.

“The journal is the primary point of enforcement”

against fraud. “In the end, it’s our process that got

that work into publication. " [Harry Klee, Editor, The

Plant Journal].

Science writers, JENNIFER COUZIN and KATHERINE UNGER,

examined more than a dozen fraud or suspected fraud

cases spanning 20 years. It reveals the academy's

distaste for expunging fraudulent reports from the

scientific literature. Journal efforts are described

as " uneven and often chaotic. " A lack of consistency

leaves doubt about whether and how a journal will deal

with findings of fraud--even when confirmed by a

credible investigation by the federal Office of

Research Integrity--an agency not known to be

particularly vigilant about pursuing accusations of

fraud.

Most journals do not proceed to expunge the scientific

literature of fraudulent reports without the author's

confession to fraud; and without the written request

by ALL authors of a fraudulent report to do so. That's

like holding off sentencing a criminal found guilty by

a court of law until he pleads to be punished…

" For the journals, a confession followed by author

unanimity to pull a paper is a best-case scenario...

The official rule for journals is that the authors

must do the retracting,” says AACR’s Case. A

retraction on these terms sharply reduces the legal

risk that journals will be accused of tainting a

scientist’s reputation by retracting a paper without

his or her consent. "

" But debates rage over how comprehensive fraud

investigations need to be—whether, for example, they

ought to examine a scientist’s entire body of work

regardless of expense. And then there are the

journals, keepers of the historical record. Journal

editors often stress—and universities and funders

agree— that publications are in no position to

investigate fraud.

The burden, they say, should be on institutions and

funding agencies; they have the money and staff to

convene sweeping inquiries and demand raw data.

Traditionally, journals wait for the results of

inquiries to steer decisions on problem papers. Some

act only if a retraction has been requested by a

paper’s authors—preferably all of them. But authors

accused or suspected of fraud often don’t agree to a

retraction. Editors must then make a potentially

career-wrecking decision, with varying degrees of

guidance. "

Among the case examples cited demonstrate that unlike

the academy, industry is likely to be far less

tolerant of fraud by an individual scientist:

Poehlman, an obesity and aging researcher at the

University of Vermont in Burlington, who had penned

204 articles. He left the school after a whistleblower

brought concerns of research inconsistencies to

university officials. [Office of Research Integrity]

ORI oversaw its biggest inquiry ever, covering 10

papers co-authored by Poehlman and 15 of his NIH grant

applications. All 10 papers, they determined,

contained fabricated data and ought to be retracted or

corrected. "

" An ORI finding, many journal editors say, gives

publications ironclad backing to withdraw a paper even

if an author doesn’t cooperate. But ORI officials

weren’t happy with the journals' response in the

Poehlman case. By last September, 6 months after the

office issued its report, six of 10 journals had

published retractions or corrections, supplied by

Poehlman as part of his agreement with government

officials. Two more followed. But two journals have

not acted at all, according to ORI officials and

journal records. (Poehlman has pleaded guilty to

making false statements on a federal grant application

and is awaiting sentencing. "

Even as he pled guilty to fraud colleagues defended

him: B. , an obesity researcher and

professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham,

said that based on the facts of the case " from the

initial university investigation, " he believes that

Poehlman " committed no act of scientific misconduct. "

The University of Vermont investigation concluded that

Poehlman had fabricated most of the data used in a

six-year study of changes in 35 women after menopause,

which was published in The ls of Internal Medicine

in 1995. In 2003, the journal retracted the paper

Friedhelm Herrmann, German oncologist, author of 349

papers on cancer research: 94 publications were found

to contain falsified or suspicious data; 19 papers

retracted, two corrected

He is currently working as an oncologist in Munich.

Science found that even retracted papers endure: Like

ghosts riffling the pages of journals, retracted

papers live on.

The reluctance of journals to carry out their public

responsibility is borne out by how even after

fraudulent papers are retracted, they " can linger in

the scientific record for years. "

Although the Internet has made it easy to link

retractions to articles, “if something has been

published in a paper journal and been bound, and then

retracted later, no one’s going to know,”

Science reporters describe how by using Thomson

Scientific ISI Web of Knowledge and Google Scholar,

they found " dozens of citations of retracted papers in

fields from physics to cancer research to plant

biology fraudulent retracted publications continue to

exert influence--and, therefore, to misinform other

scientists:

" Seventeen of 19 retracted papers co-authored by

German cancer researcher Friedhelm Herrmann have been

cited since being retracted, in some cases nearly a

decade after they were pulled. Together, two of those

papers were cited roughly 60 times. Examination of one

Nature paper by former Bell Labs physicist Jan Hendrik

Schön, published in 2000 and retracted in 2003,

revealed that it’s been noted in research papers 17

times since, although the drop-off after retraction

was steep: Prior to being pulled, the paper was cited

153 times. "

Responding to continued references to retracted

publications, , former editor of the

British Medical Journal, acknowledged, It’s “quite

embarrassing. " And Friedman, a former dean at the

University of California, San Diego, who oversaw an

investigation into papers by radiologist

Slutsky in the mid-1980s, said: " If people cite

fraudulent articles, then either their research is

going to be thrown off or something will be wasted.”

Those who suggested that citations to retracted

articles are “negative”--that the paper is cited

precisely because it was retracted, and the retraction

duly noted in the text, are shown to be wrong. “It

almost never happens,” says Drummond Rennie, a deputy

editor of the Journal of the American Medical

Association. Indeed, Science spot checks of 10 papers

that cite withdrawn publications found no negative

citations. Instead, scientists often don’t know that

the work they are citing has been retracted. Lon

Kaufman, a cell biologist at the University of

Illinois, Chicago, was surprised to learn from Science

that his 1999 article in The Plant Journal cited

Afterlife. This Science paper was retracted nearly 7

years ago, but that hasn’t stopped other researchers

from citing it.

Fear of lawsuits is often the reason given for failure

to cleanse the scientific record. But that may be a

knee jerk excuse--especially when fraud has been found

by a credible investigation. The real reason why

journals might be reluctant to pull a paper--and why

retractions rank low on the priority scale, is the

reluctance to " make waves " or to spoil relationships

within the good old boy network: fear that it " can

breed bad blood between the journal and researchers.

They can also reflect poorly on a publication. "

" Friedman, a radiologist and then–associate dean

of the University of California, San Diego, spent 15

months overseeing an investigation of 135 publications

by a colleague, Slutsky, who was accused of

widespread fraud. Of the 60 publications judged

fraudulent or questionable, Science found retractions

for 18. The journals with which he corresponded

ranged from pleasantly collegial to downright

defensive. "

Ulf Rapp, a cancer researcher at the University of

Würzburg in Germany, led an inquiry into Herrmann’s

work set up by Germany’s main science funding agency,

the DFG.

His contact with the journals, Science reports, " left

a bitter taste in his mouth. Most ignored his notes

and faxes, he says, or “wrote back very nasty

letters.” Several, he says, remained determined to

get permission from every author on the paper. The

reaction “did surprise me. … It seemed to me we were

helping those guys. They had a rotten egg in their

basket. We gave them a chance to clear it up. "

Unlike academic scientists whose institutions coddle

them when caught committing fraud, corporate

scientists who engage in fraud can expect to be

sacked. Jan Hendrik Schön, a physicist for Bell Labs,

author or co-author of 90+ papers 25 papers

investigated 17 papers found to involve scientific

misconduct. He was fired from Bell Labs the day the

investigation reached its conclusions. Stripped of his

Ph.D. by University of Konstanz in 2004. Whereabouts

unknown.

Clearly, scientists and the gatekeepers of our

recorded scientific heritage have proven incapable (or

unwilling) to protect the integrity of our communal

scientific body of knowledge.

Laws are therefore needed to define scientific fraud

and to ensure that scientists will be held accountable

if they commit fraud.

See complete article at:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/312/5770/38

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav

212-595-8974

veracare@...

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