Posts Tagged ‘Scientific misconduct’

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Why cannot a concept of tort or “product liability”apply to scientists?

November 28, 2010

Cases of scientific misconduct do not seem to lead to any significant sanctions. Scientists are not subject to the codes of ethics that other professions have (even if they are not always complied with). Lawyers and doctors and engineers can be “disbarred” or otherwise forbidden from practising their professions when found guilty of incompetence or fraud.  Why then can a physicist or a chemist or a biochemist not be subject to the same professional sanctions for misconduct? Learned Institutes of Physics or Chemistry or Mathematics rarely get involved in the ethics breaches of their members. Scientists also need to be held responsible (liable) for their work and in cases of fraudulent science or misconduct, the sanctions applied need to be seen to be in balance with the extent of the offence.

There have been many cases of scientific misconduct where the offender seems to get little more than a slap on the wrist or a mild reprimand. In some cases they leave one institution and merely move to another. Their degrees are rarely revoked and they usually continue “working” or faking work in some other institution.

Retraction Watch addresses the details of the case of the fraud committed by Dr Jatinder Ahluwalia at University College London which led to the retraction of a paper in Nature.

Earlier this month, we posted an item about the retraction of a 2004Nature paper, “The large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channel is essential for innate immunity.” (That post was followed up with provocative comments from a researcher not affiliated with the authors, about what should happen to papers whose results can’t be replicated.)

One of the paper’s authors, Jatinder Ahluwalia, hadn’t signed the retraction, and the notice referred to “Supplementary Information” that hadn’t yet been made available. Today, University College London (UCL) posted that supplementary information, which was the report of a panel that investigated charges of research misconduct against Ahluwalia. That report fills in a lot of details about what preceded the retraction.

UCL’s investigation found that Ahluwalia:

  • falsified the results of experiments conducted by him, on UCL premises, thereby committing research fraud, as defined by paragraph 1.1.iv of the UCL Procedure for Investigating and Resolving Allegations of Misconduct in Academic Research. It was alleged that Dr Ahluwalia altered the numbering of files of research results so as to misrepresent the results of experiments conducted by him;
  • further falsified and misrepresented the results of experiments conducted by him, on UCL premises, by the use of materials other than those specified in the reports of the results of those experiments, thereby committing research fraud, as defined by paragraph 1.1.iv of the UCL Procedure for Investigating and Resolving Allegations of Misconduct in Academic Research;
  • interfered with the experiments of others so as to distort their results, thus falsifying the results of research experiments conducted by others employed by UCL on UCL premises, thereby committing research fraud, as defined in paragraph 1.1.iv of the UCL Procedure for Investigating and Resolving Allegations of Misconduct in Academic Research. It was alleged that Dr Ahluwalia deliberately contaminated chemicals used by other researchers in their experiments so as to falsify the results of those experiments, in order to conceal the falsification by him of the results of his own experiments.

Dr Ahluwalia is currently employed as a Senior Lecturer & Programme leader in BSc & MSc Pharmacology at the School of Health and Biosciences, University of East London,  Stratford Campus, Romford Road, London E15 4LZ, United Kingdom. For having committed fraud and engaged in sabotage and even though he is no longer employed by UCL, it does not seem that his behaviour has led to any significant sanctions.

Recently a Harvard University investigation found its high-profile Professor Marc Hauser guilty of 8 counts of misconduct and sent him on a year’s “book leave” and he will resume his activities next year. He does not lose tenure and his degrees are not revoked and the sanction seems relatively mild in relation to his behaviour.

The product that researchers and scientists produce is publications – mainly as papers published in scientific journals and as books. Scientific misconduct (whether plagiarism or faking data or inventing data or cherry picking data) leads occasionally to dismissals (but not always) and generally very little else. It seems to me that the concept of tort or “product liability” should be applicable to the work of scientists and researchers where their work is the result of faking data, fraud or other misconduct since it would be work that “had not been done in good faith”. Tort would apply because the ramifications of their misconduct would extend far beyond their employment contracts with their employers.

Tort  (from Wikipedia) is a wrong:

that involves a breach of a civil duty owed to someone else. It is differentiated from criminal wrongdoing which involves a breach of a duty owed to society, and also does not include breach of contract. Tort cases may comprise such topics as auto accidents, false imprisonment, slander and libel, product liability (such as defectively designed consumer products), and environmental pollution (toxic torts).

Clearly a researcher has a civic duty to his co-workers, his department, his institution, his publishers and to the global community working in the same field. Scientific misconduct is a clear breach of these duties and any such researcher must then be both accountable and liable. Sanctions in such cases must be commensurate and seen to be commensurate with the offence. A year’s sabbatical from Harvard or merely moving across town to be employed at another university does not seem to be in balance with the weight of the misconduct.

The employment contract of a researcher with any institution no doubt has the appropriate language which allows sanctions (including dismissal) for breach of contract. However the liability of a fraudulent researcher – especially with published papers and books – goes beyond a simple breach of contract with his employer and extends to the entire community of workers in the field and even to all readers who may be influenced by the fraudulent work. For commensurate sanctions to be possible it becomes necessary for the concept of tort to be introduced and for  “product liability” to reside with the researcher whereby he can be held accountable by the entire audience his “product” is addressed to.

Authors of scientific papers and books need to be responsible and liable for their products.

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Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, Law, Philosophy, Science | 4 Comments »

Belated action on scientific misconduct in India

November 18, 2010

The Calcutta Telegraph carries the sordid story of scientific fraud, establishment denial, paper retractions and finally establishment acceptance of the misconduct.

The Gopal Kundu controversy

A controversy erupted in National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune in 2006 when an anonymous mail alleged that the authors (H. Rangaswami and Colleagues from the group of Dr. Gopal Kundu) may have misrepresented data in a paper published in Journal of Biological Chemistry. The allegation was that they had rehashed the same set of data which they had published earlier. An internal committee of the NCCS advised the authors to take back their paper, however an independent committee led by G. Padmanabhan, a former director of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, concluded that there was no manipulation in the data. This led to some heated debate between Indian Scientists with several viewpoints being presented. On 23 February 2007, the Journal of Biological Chemistry withdrew the paper amid allegations of data manipulation. The authors still maintain that the two papers used different set of data though similar experiments.

However the panel set up was not as independent as claimed. Its members were chosen by the Government and – as often when things get politicised in India – they returned a “politically correct” white-wash. But now as The Telegraph reports:

An apex association of Indian scientists today debarred for three years a senior biologist who had been accused of plagiarism by international scientific journals three years ago but was exonerated by a government panel of top scientists.

The unprecedented action by the Bangalore-based Indian Academy of Sciences, after an internal investigation by its ethics committee, appears to vindicate claims by some scientists that the government-appointed panel had tried to shield the accused.

At its annual meeting in Goa today, the academy endorsed the decision by its ethics committee (which was accepted by the academy’s council in July) and barred Gopal Kundu from participating in the academy’s activities for three years, beginning August 2010.

Nor can Kundu, a research scientist at Pune’s National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), propose any candidates for fellowship of the academy during this period.

The prestigious US-based Journal of Biological Chemistry(JBC) had in February 2007 withdrawn a research paper by Kundu, accusing him of reusing images he had published in an earlier paper.

Another journal, Glycoconjugates Journal, too, had withdrawn a paper by Kundu because it had substantial similarities with a paper he had himself published previously in the JBC.

Better late than never but what is more important is the relatively low value given to ethics by the scientific establishment. Ethics, misconduct and scientific rigour can always be trumped by political correctness. Rahul Siddharthan writes in his excellent post:

An internal investigation at Kundu’s institution found him guilty of misrepresenting data, but a subsequent investigation by an external committee of six eminent scientists exonerated him completely, declaring themselves entirely satisfied that the images, though visually similar, were “indeed different.” I subsequently made my own analysis and published it in Current Science, who followed it with a response from G Padmanaban, the head of the committee that exonerated Kundu.

………

To me, this case is not really about Kundu. It is about our complete lack of appreciation of scientific ethics, and our tendency to “close ranks” when trouble arrives. To succumb to this tendency even after an international journal has conducted its own investigation and made its own decision, and to justify it with a paltry two-page report, merely makes us a laughing-stock.

So it is a good thing that the Academy has, belatedly, tried to correct this.

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Posted in Ethics, India, Peer review, Scientific Fraud, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Belated action on scientific misconduct in India

US scientists more likely to publish fake research

November 16, 2010

A new on-line paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics has studied the PubMed database for all scientific research papers that had been retracted between 2000 and 2010.

Retractions in the scientific literature: do authors deliberately commit research fraud? by R Grant Steen J Med Ethics doi:10.1136/jme.2010.038125

Abstract

Background Papers retracted for fraud (data fabrication or data falsification) may represent a deliberate effort to deceive, a motivation fundamentally different from papers retracted for error. It is hypothesised that fraudulent authors target journals with a high impact factor (IF), have other fraudulent publications, diffuse responsibility across many co-authors, delay retracting fraudulent papers and publish from countries with a weak research infrastructure.

Methods All 788 English language research papers retracted from the PubMed database between 2000 and 2010 were evaluated. Data pertinent to each retracted paper were abstracted from the paper and the reasons for retraction were derived from the retraction notice and dichotomised as fraud or error. Data for each retracted article were entered in an Excel spreadsheet for analysis.

Results Journal IF was higher for fraudulent papers (p<0.001). Roughly 53% of fraudulent papers were written by a first author who had written other retracted papers (‘repeat offender’), whereas only 18% of erroneous papers were written by a repeat offender (χ=88.40; p<0.0001). Fraudulent papers had more authors (p<0.001) and were retracted more slowly than erroneous papers (p<0.005). Surprisingly, there was significantly more fraud than error among retracted papers from the USA (χ2=8.71; p<0.05) compared with the rest of the world.

Conclusions This study reports evidence consistent with the ‘deliberate fraud’ hypothesis. The results suggest that papers retracted because of data fabrication or falsification represent a calculated effort to deceive. It is inferred that such behaviour is neither naïve, feckless nor inadvertent.

PhysOrg summarises the paper:

The study author searched the PubMed database for every scientific research paper that had been withdrawn—and therefore officially expunged from the public record—between 2000 and 2010. A total of 788 papers had been retracted during this period. Around three quarters of these papers had been withdrawn because of a serious error (545); the rest of the retractions were attributed to fraud (data fabrication or falsification).

The highest number of retracted papers were written by US first authors (260), accounting for a third of the total. One in three of these was attributed to fraud.

The UK, India, Japan, and China each had more than 40 papers withdrawn during the decade. Asian nations, including South Korea, accounted for 30% of retractions. Of these, one in four was attributed to fraud.

The fakes were more likely to appear in leading publications with a high “impact factor.” This is a measure of how often research is cited in other peer reviewed journals. More than half (53%) of the faked research papers had been written by a first author who was a “repeat offender.” This was the case in only one in five (18%) of the erroneous papers.

The average number of authors on all retracted papers was three, but some had 10 or more. Faked research papers were significantly more likely to have multiple authors. Each first author who was a repeat fraudster had an average of six co-authors, each of whom had had another three retractions.

“The duplicity of some authors is cause for concern,” comments the author. Retraction is the strongest sanction that can be applied to published research, but currently, “[it] is a very blunt instrument used for offences both gravely serious and trivial.”

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Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, Medicine, Science, Scientific Fraud, scientific misconduct | 1 Comment »

Another Nature paper retracted by authors but lead author does not sign retraction

November 9, 2010

Retraction Watch reports on the retraction of a paper at Nature by the authors but where, once again, the lead author does not sign the retraction.

In this case the paper is:

The large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+channel is essential for innate immunity by Jatinder Ahluwalia, Andrew Tinker, Lucie H. Clapp, Michael R. Duchen, Andrey Y. Abramov, Simon Pope, Muriel Nobles & Anthony W. Segal, Nature 427, 853-858 (26 February 2004), doi:10.1038/nature02356; Received 18 July 2003; Accepted 20 January 2004.

The Retraction Notice reads

The authors wish to retract this Letter after the report of an inability to reproduce their results, later confirmed by another. The studies the authors then conducted led to an internal investigation by University College London, please see the accompanying Supplementary Information for details. The retraction has not been signed by Jatinder Ahluwalia.

The lead author is usually the researcher and the last name is usually that of the senior author. There have been a number of such cases recently where the authors retract a paper but where the lead author does not sign the retraction. The inference is that there has been some misconduct or alleged misconduct by the researcher which has been “discovered” by the other authors but where the alleged misconduct is not acknowledged by the lead author. (See the cases of Shane R Mayack and Hung-Shu Chang for example). Just the fact that some data can not be reproduced does not mean that misconduct has occurred. Experimental data can never be perfect. In addition to measurement errors and procedural errors, data may also be subject to errors of interpretation and analysis. In fact the scientific method requires the publication of such data – warts and all – which can then be tested by others and retraction would not be necessary or correct merely if different results were obtained later. Erroneous data does not have to be – and should not be – deleted from the record. A retraction – and especially by a multiplicity of contributing authors but not the lead author  – carries a strong inference of misconduct.

This raises once again the question of roles and responsibilities between the different contributing authors, the reviewers and the journal editor for a published paper. Perhaps the number of retractions is at an “acceptable” level, but I am sure that the number of retractions must follow the “Iceberg Principle” and what is finally made visible can only be the tip of what must be there. The senior author must bear some responsibility and have some accountability for such events.

It seems to me that senior authors (as supervisors of the research reported) get away too lightly and merely pass the responsibility onto the researcher’s failings or his misconduct. They abdicate their responsibility for quality and integrity rather too easily. I would like to see a statement by the senior author whenever such a retraction is made “at the request of the authors”.

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Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, Science, scientific misconduct | 1 Comment »

Marc Hauser’s apologists are getting organised

November 2, 2010

Earlier posts have described a Harvard investigation led by the Dean of the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith which found Marc Hauser responsible for eight counts of scientific misconduct. Hauser has been “sentenced” to “book leave” for the year.

Some academics – together with some luke warm support from the CHE and the New York Times – seem to be starting a campaign to ease his way back into the academic world. But they give me the impression of merely being apologists. Perhaps – they say – he just made innocent mistakes. Or that the difficult subject of cognition is prone to errors. Maybe he got a raw deal! Unfortunately it all seems like a PR exercise now. Damage control and the hell with the questionable ethics of a Professor who specialises in cognition and ethics.

But it seems to me to be conveniently forgotten that he has already been found guilty – on eight counts just at Harvard. The onus of proof has shifted. The assumption must now be of guilt  – not of innocence. His work dating at least back to 1995 is suspect.

At least the Harvard Crimson is not (at least not yet) joining the circle of protective wagons beginning to form around Hauser:

Professor Hauser is set to return to campus next year after his leave is over. However, we believe that the University should implement some sort of consequence when he returns—a penalty that is on par with the severity of his actions. Although it would be helpful if Harvard would release more information on the eight counts of misconduct that it uncovered, it is likely prohibited from doing so by the regulations surrounding ongoing legal proceedings.

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Posted in Behaviour, Science, scientific misconduct | 1 Comment »

Egyptian paper retracted for photo-shopping!

October 28, 2010

 

Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University Hospitals

Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University: Image via Wikipedia

 

Retraction Watch has this amazing story of faking data by photoshopping pictures of warts!

The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology has retracted a paper it published earlier this year online by authors from Zagazig University.  Zagazig is a town in Lower Egypt, in the eastern part of the Nile delta, and is the capital of the province of the Sharqia Governorate.

Retraction Watch writes:

According to the Egyptian researchers, the MMR therapy “completely” cleared plantar warts in 20 of 23 patients (nearly 90%), and partially removed them in one more patient. Helpfully, the journal abstract provides a section on limitations, which lists the small size of the study and the lack of a control group.

Per the editors:

This article has been retracted because Figure 1C appears to be a digitally altered version of Figure 1B. In addition, the lead author asserts that the signature on the submission form for the manuscript is  not hers. The lead author also asserts that the published figures were not part of the investigation that is the subject of the report.

Indeed, the last two images—a rather plump left foot lying against some kind of floral-print backdrop—appear to be identical with the exception of the missing lesions in the final shot. The placement of the foot against the details of the pattern is so close that it seems highly unlikely to have occurred twice by chance.

The lead author Hend Gamil, MD, who asserts that her signature has been forged on the paper submission remarkably maintains the validity of the study since the apparently photoshopped pictures were from a patient who was not part of the study.

Two wrongs making a right apparently!

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Wagers paper (without Mayack) also questioned

October 21, 2010

(Thanks to Phil Score for pointing out the typos which have been fixed)

A few days ago the paper in Nature “Systemic signals regulate ageing and rejuvenation of blood stem cell niches” by Shane R. Mayack, Jennifer L. Shadrach, Francis S. Kim & Amy J. Wagers was retracted at the request of 3 of the authors. Then the Journal Blood issued a Notice of Concern regarding a second paper with Shane Mayack as the lead author and published with Amy Wagers.

In both of these cases, Shane Mayack who was the post-doctoral fellow at the Joslin Diabetes Center of Harvard Medical School was the lead author and the implication was that they could be something untoward with her work.

Now Retraction Watch reports that a  Scientist raised serious questions about 2008 Cell study by Amy Wagers. The questions were of a scientific and technical nature and in themselves carry no implications of impropriety.

Shane Mayack was not involved with this paper but since Amy Wagers led the team at the Joslin Diabetes Center, the question that arises is one of leadership and of the environment within which research is carried out. As I have posted earlier this atmosphere and the pressure of publication for the researchers may be leading to errors of judgement and misconduct. Professors and leaders of scientific teams cannot, I think, abdicate their responsibility for the environment in which their teams work especially where their names are included as co-authors of the resulting publications. The senior author on any published paper must be the first quality gate to be passed and must provide the final assurance of the integrity of the work being reported.


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Another Harvard paper retracted – post-doc’s research suspect

October 14, 2010

The paper in Nature “Systemic signals regulate ageing and rejuvenation of blood stem cell niches” by Shane R. Mayack, Jennifer L. Shadrach, Francis S. Kim & Amy J. Wagers has been retracted at the request of 3 of the authors.

According to the Boston Globe story the retraction was not signed by Shane R Mayack, the lead author of the article, who was a postdoctoral researcher in Wagers’s laboratory.

The paper, published in January in Nature, examined aging of blood stem cells. The retraction, published yesterday, was signed by Amy Wagers, a stem cell biologist at Joslin Diabetes Center and two of her coauthors.

Joslin spokesman Eric Bender said he could not comment on whether Mayack was still working in the laboratory. The retraction did not explain whether it was an innocent mistake, possible research misconduct, or some other issue — nor did it make clear who, if anyone, was at fault.

Two months ago, Harvard confirmed that a high-profile psychology professor, Marc Hauser, had engaged in eight instances of scientific misconduct, leading to the retraction of one paper he coauthored and raising concerns about two others.




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Posted in Science, scientific misconduct | 3 Comments »

For Hauser it was worth faking data to get tenure, it seems

September 10, 2010

The Harvard Crimson reports that it is rare for cases of misconduct to result in any loss of tenure at Harvard.

The obvious conclusion is that it was probably worthwhile for Hauser to fake data if the resultant spate of publications and fame led to tenure as it probably did. A disclosure of the fakery and any resulting sanctions – none so far – will still turn out to be less than the gains made due to the acquiring of tenure. If the cost-benefit analysis is in favour of faking data it undermines and negates the entire system of getting tenure.

As psychology professor Marc D. Hauser faces allegations of research misconduct—which the American Association of University Professors states may be grounds for revocation of tenure—some in the scientific community question whether Hauser should keep his teaching position at Harvard.

But a review of Harvard’s recent history of faculty scandals suggests those calling for the University to dismiss Hauser should not hold their breath.

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