Scientists Behaving Badly...

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The Boston Globe

Boston Globe, The (MA)

June 9, 2005

SURVEYED SCIENTISTS ADMIT MISCONDUCT

Author: Gareth Cook, Globe Staff

Edition: THIRD

Section: National/Foreign

Page: A1

Estimated printed pages: 5

Article Text:

A third of American biomedical scientists have engaged in

questionable research practices, according to survey results

released yesterday that raise questions about the integrity of the

nation's multibillion-dollar quest to understand the human body and

cure diseases.

The study, based on a survey of about 3,000 government-funded

scientists, is the first broad, quantitative examination of

misconduct that asked researchers to admit their own misdeeds. The

scientists, who participated anonymously, were asked whether they

had done any of 33 actions in the three years before the 2002

survey. Asked about the most serious misconduct, 0.3 percent said

they had falsified data, and 1.4 percent said they had used

another's ideas without gaining permission or giving credit. In

addition, 15.5 percent said they had changed how they conducted an

experiment or its results in response to pressure from a funding

source, raising the prospect that companies are! influencing

scientific papers to support their commercial interests. The

scientists also admitted a range of other misdeeds, such as

circumventing the rules on using human subjects in experiments, and

not properly disclosing ties with companies.

" We found a striking level and breadth of misbehavior, " said lead

author C. son, a researcher at HealthPartners Research

Foundation in Minneapolis. " I think this really causes us to call

into question the assumption that it is just a few bad apples. "

There is no way, said son, to gauge how much of the nation's

research was compromised by the misconduct. And several specialists

on scientific conduct said that it was difficult to know from the

study how common scientific misbehavior is because many of the

questions were worded vaguely, and could include behavior that is

not objectionable. For example, a scientist might have changed the

design of an experiment after a legitimate suggestion from a

governm! ent funding source.

But the specialists welcomed the work, whic h was published in the

journal Nature, saying more research like it is needed at a time

when science is becoming increasingly commercialized.

Trust and integrity lie at the heart of the scientific process, with

published experimental results making careers, determining whether

scientists win research grants, and shaping spending priorities in

the nearly $30 billion budget of the National Institutes of Health.

At a time when scandals have shaken the worlds of business,

politics, and journalism, the authors of the new report said that

similar factors such as intense competition and human failings such

as greed and cynicism threaten the fundamental working of science.

They said the problem goes well beyond the egregious cases that the

government is authorized to investigate.

Editors of prominent medical journals have been increasingly vocal

about financial conflicts of interest that they say are hampering

science, causing researchers to hype positive results and! downplay

negative ones. Yet the topic of misconduct tends to make scientists

uneasy, and that has led to a dearth of research on the subject.

" I think this is a very important step, " said C. K. Gunsalus, a

special counsel at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,

and one of the nation's leading specialists on research

integrity. " The discomfort means that we don't like to talk about

it, and that means we don't have good data. "

Surveying misconduct was controversial even before the current study

was done. In 2002, the US government's Office of Research Integrity

proposed conducting a survey of scientific misconduct, but several

scientific groups, including the Association of American Medical

Colleges, objected. They said that the survey questions were vague

and might be misused, and that the federal government's role should

be restricted to policing fabrication, falsification, and

plagiarism.

The government study was eventually canceled, and th! at same year

the editors of Nature harshly criticized the scientific groups for

their role in stopping it, saying they gave " a good impersonation of

aged, out-of-touch special interests with something to hide. "

The survey reported yesterday was done with government funding,

including money from the Office of Research Integrity, but it was

conducted by an independent scientific team. An official with the

Association of American Medical Colleges, which represents some of

the nation's leading biomedical research institutions, said the

group had no objection to the survey being done this way, but she

declined to comment on the results of the study, saying she had not

had time to review it carefully.

son said his team designed the survey based on interviews with

scientists about the kinds of misbehavior they believe are most

common. In these interviews, he said, he was surprised at how candid

scientists were in describing a wide range of problems. Some said

they felt guilty crossing ethical lines, but that they needed to in

ord! er to succeed. One scientist, he said, described coming across

a case where his own work had been systematically plagiarized, but

the scientist did not report it because the person who had done it

was a powerful figure in the field.

The team designated 10 of the behaviors as the most serious types of

misconduct, based on interviews with officials at universities who

oversee research integrity. Thirty-three percent of scientists

admitted to at least one of these 10 behaviors in the three years

before the survey, according to the paper.

In the report, titled " Scientists Behaving Badly, " the most common

misbehavior was making changes in response to pressure from a

funder. There have been cases, now public, where drug firms have

pressured scientists to rewrite or not publish papers because they

would harm the market for one of their products.

Two of the most common practices found in the survey are likely to

raise red flags because they hint at a breakdown ! of the basic

checks and balances that are supposed to correct the scie ntific

record. Of the scientists surveyed, 12.5 percent admitted

to " overlooking others' use of flawed data or questionable

interpretation of data, " and 6 percent admitted to " failing to

present data that contradict one's own previous research. " The paper

also reported other behaviors beyond what it called the " top 10 "

most serious offenses. Ten percent admitted to " inappropriately

assigning authorship credit " and 15.3 percent admitted to " dropping

observations or data points from analyses based on a gut feeling

that they were inaccurate. "

But because of the vagueness of many of the questions, it is

impossible to know how serious an infraction the scientists were

admitting to, or even if it was an infraction, said Dr. Drummond

Rennie, a deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical

Association who has been a longtime advocate for more study of

misconduct. Rennie said that he welcomed the work and hoped there

would now be more rigorous study of the issue.

! Another problem, Rennie and others said, is that the survey relies

on scientists to report on themselves, and even with the promise of

anonymity, the results depend on the honesty of the people filling

it out. Also, only about half of the scientists responded to the

survey, which was mailed.

son said that he agreed there were flaws in the study, but

that he hoped it would inspire more discussion of the problem.

" I don't have all the answers, " son said. " What I think I have

here is some evidence that suggests we need to begin a more broad-

based conversation. "