Scientific misconduct has been under the microscope lately. Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned last month after a series of investigations revealed serious problems in his own scientific research, for example.
And that’s because an independent review of Tessier-Lavigne’s work found no evidence that he falsified data, but concluded that his research did not meet standards of “scientific rigor and procedure” and that he failed to correct his reports. in many cases. Additionally, in June it was revealed that a fellow at the prestigious Harvard Business School, Francesca Gino, was accused of falsifying research on… honesty!
Thousands of scientific papers are retracted
Of course, scientific misconduct doesn’t just happen at Stanford and Harvard. Of the nearly 5,500 retractions of scientific research recorded in 2022 by the supervisory website “Retraction Watch“, and of the thousands of cases it has reported since its launch, the vast majority concern researchers at institutions that do not even remotely have the “pedigree tree” of Stanford and Harvard.
The number of retractions each year reflects about one-tenth of 1% of the papers published in a year – in other words, one in a thousand investigations. However, this number has increased significantly from about 40 retractions in 2000, far outpacing the increase in the annual volume of papers published.
Research retractions have skyrocketed in recent years for two main reasons: first, research largely by volunteers “combing” the academic literature for anomalies, and second, the (belated) recognition by major publishers that their business models they have made them vulnerable to paper mills and scholarly bookstores that sell everything from copyrights to entire manuscripts to researchers who must publish in order not to perish…
What happens when scientific fraud seriously harms health?
These researchers are required – sometimes under harsh conditions – to publish papers in order to earn and keep their jobs or to be promoted.
In fact, the governments of some countries have even offered monetary bonuses for publication in certain scientific journals. “Is it any surprise, then, that some scientists steal?” ask the founders of Retraction Watch.
And these are not just academic issues. Especially when it comes to medical research, falsification hurts people. Take the example of Joachim Boldt – the German anesthesiologist who, with 186 retractions, now tops the Retraction Watch’s ranking of scientists with the most retracted papers.
A specialist in intensive care medicine, Boldt studied a blood substitute that was used in hospitals across Europe. His results, published roughly between 1990 and 2009 and widely reported, showed that the product – used to help keep blood pressure and oxygen supply to cells at adequate levels – saved lives.
After his fraud was exposed and researchers reanalyzed all available data, leaving out Boldt’s results, it turned out the opposite: the blood substitute was “associated with a significantly increased risk of mortality and acute kidney injury.”
Fraudsters strike back: Blame employees, sue critics
The truth, however, is that the number of recalls in 2022 – 5,500 – is almost certainly a huge underestimate of how much misconduct and fraud there is.
The measures scientists use to combat claims of fraud is one of the reasons the recall rate is lower than it should be. They punish their whistleblowers, sometimes blaming them for their own wrongdoing. They are suing the critics.
Although they rarely prevail in court, the threat of such lawsuits and the cost of litigation have a significant impact on would-be whistleblowers. In a horrific and tragic case in 2006, a Bangladeshi academic… murdered an informant! The academic was hanged 17 years later.
Scholarly journals and publishers also fail to do their duty, finding ways to ignore criticism of what they have published, leaving fatally “flawed” work unmarked as fraud or error.
Universities do not expose the “cheats” of their scientists
At the same time, universities hardly have an incentive to air their dirty laundry, but in the vast majority of cases they are left to investigate their own.
Indeed, that is the law in the United States, where scientists and universities have done everything they can to steadily undermine the power of the US government’s Office of Research Integrity, which oversees – but does not conduct – investigations into allegations of misconduct in federally funded research.
University lawyers tell those in the know not to say anything, a form of academic “omerta” that allows fraudsters to slip through many cracks.
The Stanford case – as described by Theo Baker, the student journalist who uncovered it – epitomizes all of these factors. Despite being flagged on a website called “PubPeer” since 2014, the problems in Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s papers would have remained largely unknown and may never have been fixed had it not been for Baker’s research.
Scientific fraud and funding
One of the main reasons scientists feel pressured to make cuts or falsify data is because funding rates are so low. The US National Institutes of Health approved about 20% of new grant applications last year. And this is a significant increase compared to recent years.
Funding to detect and punish scientific fraud should be a reasonable fraction of the dollars spent – rather than mere millions in a “sea” of tens of billions. However, until job posting is decoupled from obtaining funding and employment, it is hard to imagine if and how much much will change.
