Allegations of dishonesty in research and their treatment by American Universities

SINCE 1980 there has been an unusual number of reports of misconduct in scientific research in the United States, especially falsification of data and plagiarism. Between 1980 and 1987, nearly 20 cases of this kind were reported in such national news organs as The New York Times and Science. No one knows if these represent “the tip of the iceberg” or “a few bad apples”, but in either case they represent a challenge to universities, medical schools, academic research institutes and bodies which support research. The challenges lie in responding appropriately to the particular instance of misconduct and finding ways to reduce the probability of such misconduct in the future. For these purposes, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Bar Association National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists have organised a Project on Scientific Fraud and Misconduct, to which I have made contributions that are the basis of this article. Much recent commentary points to the diverse forms that scientific misconduct can take, including but not limited to abuse of laboratory animals, unethical treatment of human subjects, falsification of data, misappropriation of another’s ideas, mishandling of hazardous materials, careless use of recombinant-DNA products, exploitation of research assistants, and simultaneous submission of essentially similar articles to different journals. There have been additional reflections on the difficulty of differentiating between outright fraud in research and more acceptable practices of the manipulation of data that are commonly used by honest investigators to show their results in the most acceptable form.