SCIENTIFIC FRAUD AND

MISCONDUCT

https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/08/02/trust-and-mistrust-in-americans-views-of-scientific-experts/

Ernst Haeckel Jan Hendrik Schön

On track for Nobel prizeOrganic conductors

Bell Labs

WikipediaList of scientific misconduct incidents

Malcolm Pearce

a small case series with no controls, linked three common conditions, and relied on parental recall and beliefs

MMR linked to autism

Andrew Wakefield

ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

Brian and Allan Kaspar were the chief scientific officer and vice president at AveXis (gene therapy division of Novartis)

May 24 2019, FDA approve Zolgensma, a gene therapy product used to treat children (<2 yrs) with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

June 28 2019, FDA informed by AveXis Inc. - data manipulation issue that impacts the accuracy of data from animal testing submitted in the biologics license application (BLA)

Novartis purchased AveXis for $8.7 billion in 2018. Brian Kaspar made over $380 million.

Within Business Community

https://retractionwatch.com/ Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGBrfyOCCII Ivan Oransky - most concerning retractions

Tracking scale of scientific/publication fraud

A quantifiable characteristic may be RETRACTIONS

The Fraud SpectrumDefinitions….

FRAUD TRIANGLE

Donald Cressey…………

Motivation/Pressure

OpportunityRationalise

Must be the data, not my theory that’s wrong

“NON-MALEVOLENT” FRAUD

Bernard Fisher

Fisher-Poisson : breast cancer

1989

Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton and Stanley Pons of the University of Utah

Pons-Fleischmann : cold fusion

Fisher: giant of refining treatmentsPoisson: study clinician

Poisson falsified data to admit patients (1990)

3 yr investigation ORI - Fisher innocent of any scientific misconduct

“DELIBERATE FRAUD”

1. Pressure to publish (career progression, >250000 new papers pa)

2. Mental illness

3. Population deviants

4. Messianic

Alleged Examples……………………………..

David MazieresMIT Computer Science

2014

1. Pressure to publish: ‘Predatory journals’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XomE5TquwhMEugenie Scott, Executive Director of National Centre for Science Education - Sceptic

2. Mental illness

Seminal ‘Nature’ paper

• Not reproducible• Significant consequences• Revealed?

Veronica James

Molecular structural changes in human fetal tissue during the early stages of embryogenesis Veronica J. James, Jack F. McConnell, Yoshiyuki Amemiya. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1379 1998 282–288

Synchrotron fibre diffraction identifies and locates foetal collagenous breast tissue associated with breast carcinomaV. James. J. Synchrotron Rad. (2002). 9, 71-76

Still being explored !!

3. Population deviant

>60 single author papersHigh impact journalsSignificant consequencesRevealed?

Aws S. Salim

Yoshihiro Sato (died 2017) bone researcher at a hospital in southern Japan, fabricated data for dozens of clinical trials published in international journals.

4. Messianic

Did the Japanese scientific community ever question how he managed to publish more than 200 papers, many of them ambitious studies that would have taken most researchers years to complete?

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/researcher-center-epic-fraud-remains-enigma-those-who-exposed-him

Studies (2005-2010): 374 patients in 4 months280 patients in 2 months500 patients in 2 months

Demonstrated 70%-80% reduction in hip fractures

Governance & Policing

Doesn’t Peer Review help?

write MS -> submit MS -> review (>1) MS -> revise MS -> publish

Peters et al (Behav & Brain Sci. 1982 5 187-225)

Testing Peer Review………………………….

Douglas Peters – psychologist (test for author/institution bias)

12 published articles. All authors in prestigious departments.

Fictitious names (authors & institutes) substituted.

Submit to 12 high impact journals with high rejection rates (>80%) (same as original journals)

Met

ho

d

• 3 out of 38 editors & reviewers detected the resubmissions

• 9 out of 12 MS’s evaluated further

• 8 out of 9 rejected (serious methodological flaws)

Re

sult

s

Developed from Congressional OversightRun by CongressmanPowers of investigation, sequestion & subpoena

Some controversy

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Governance & Policing

ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences

and Humanities,

2017

LANGUAGE

It has long been known that….

I cannot be bothered to look up the original reference

Three of the specimens were chosen for detailed study

The other results didn’t make sense and were ignored

Typical results are shown…

The best results are shown

Correct within an order of magnitude

Wrong

The correlation is excellent

The correlation is fair

The correlation is fair

The correlation is imaginary

While it was not possible to provide definite answers….

Nothing really worked, but I got a publication out of it