Abstract
When misconduct is alleged in relation to research, it requires employing, auspicing, and funding bodies to undertake an investigation. However, a number of legal steps can be taken to obstruct or delay the progress of an investigation including defamation proceedings and applications for injunctions alleging deficits in investigative fairness and methodology. Depending upon the outcome of the investigation, there is the potential for a range of serious legal outcomes for the individual concerned. These include disciplinary action for practitioners who are registered/licensed or who are members of a professional association, criminal prosecution, civil actions for compensation, and dismissal from or demotion in employment. The stakes are high for all concerned – the person accused of research misconduct, the employing organization, the funding body, the whistleblower, the area of research, and those who may have participated in or stood to benefit from the research. It is common for legal proceedings that arise from research misconduct to be lengthy and assertively contested. This chapter reviews international legal responses to accusations by whistleblowers that research misconduct has taken place, identifying the importance of prompt, fair, and independent investigative procedures and concentrating upon the role of disciplinary and criminal law to take stern measures to deter the incidence of fraudulent conduct on the part of persons who are funded either by government or by private agencies to undertake research projects.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Altman E, Hermon P (1997) Research misconduct: issues, implications and strategies. Greenwood Publishing, New York
Australian Research Integrity Council, “Establishment and Purpose of ARIC” (2018). https://www.arc.gov.au/policies-strategies/strategy/australian-research-integrity-committee-aric
Belluz J, Hoffman S (7 December 2015) Let’s stop pretending peer review works. Vox: https://www.vox.com/2015/12/7/9865086/peer-review-science-problems
Bolsin SN (1998) The Wisheart affair: responses to Dunn – the Bristol cardiac disaster. Br Med J 317(7172):1579–1582
Borrell B (10 March 2009) A medical Madoff: anesthesiologist faked data in 21 studies. Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-medical-madoff-anesthestesiologist-faked-data/
Chappell B (25 March 2019) Duke whistleblower gets more than $33 million in research fraud settlement. NPR: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/25/706604033/duke-whistleblower-gets-more-than-33-million-in-research-fraud-settlement
Cooper DKC (ed) (2014) Doctors of another calling. Physicians who are known best in fields other than medicine. Rowman & Littlefield, Maryland
Cossins D (18 April 2013) Jailed for faking data. The Scientist: https://www.the-scientist.com/the-nutshell/jailed-for-faking-data-39449
Council of Canadian Academies, Expert Panel on Research Integrity (2010) Honesty, accountability and trust: fostering research integrity in Canada. Council of Canadian Academies. https://www.scienceadvice.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/ri_report.pdf
Crotty S (2001) Ahead of the curve: David Baltimore’s life in science. University of California Press, Berkeley
Dahlberg JE, Mahler CC (2006) The Poehlman case: running away from the truth. Sci Eng Ethics 12(1):157–173
Davis MS, Riske-Morris M, Diaz SR (2007) Causal factors implicated in research misconduct: evidence from ORI case files. Sci Eng Ethics 13(4):395–424
Doherty P (2015) The knowledge wars. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne
Elliott C (5 April 2018). Knifed with a smile. The New York Review of Books: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/04/05/experiments-knifed-with-smile/
Fahy D (2015) The new celebrity scientists: out of the lab and into the limelight. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Fanelli D (2009) How many scientists fabricate and falsify research? A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey date. PLoS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005738
Fisher JA (2008) Medical research for hire: the political economy of pharmaceutical clinical trials. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick
Freckelton I (2014) Criminalising research fraud. J Law Med 22(2):241–254
Freckelton I (2016) Scholarly misconduct: law, regulation and practice. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Freckelton I (2019) Encouraging and rewarding the whistleblower in research misconduct cases. J Law Med 26:719–731
Freckelton I, McMahon M (2017) Research fraud by health practitioners and the criminal law. In: Freckelton I, Petersen K (eds) Tensions and traumas in health law. The Federation Press, Sydney, pp 433–451
Garner HR, McKiver LJ, Waitkin MB (2013) Research funding: same work, twice the money? Nature 493:599–601
George SL, Buyse M (2015) Data fraud in clinical trials. Clin Investig (Lond) 5(2):161–173
Gerber P (2006) What can we learn from the Hwang and Sudbø Affairs? Med J Aust 184(12):632–635
Gunsalus CK (23 January 2015) Misconduct expert dissects Duke scandal. The Cancer Letter: https://cancerletter.com/articles/20150123_3/
Herold E (8 October 2018) A star surgeon left a trail of dead patients – and his whistleblowers were punished. Leapsmag: https://leapsmag.com/a-star-surgeon-left-a-trail-of-dead-patients-and-his-whistleblowers-were-punished/
Hixson JR (1971) The patchwork mouse. Anchor Press, Garden City
Humphrey GF (1992) Date scientific fraud: the McBride case. Med Sci Law 32(3):199–203
Joyce C (1981) When the cheating has to stop. New Scientist 68
Kevles DJ (1998) The Baltimore case: a trial of politics, science and character. W. W. Norton, New York
Kimmel AJ (2007) Ethical issues in Behavioural research: basic and applied perspectives, 2nd edn. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford
Koestler A (1971) The case of the midwife toad. Random House, New York
Kuzma SM (1991) Criminal liability for misconduct in scientific research. Univ Mich J Law Reform 25(2):357–421
Lawson G (2012) Painting the Mice. O&G Magazine 14(2):45. https://www.ogmagazine.org.au/14/2-14/research-fraud-painting-mice/
Levelt Committee (2012) (Tilburg University), Noort Committee (Groningen University) and Drenth Committee (University of Amsterdam), Flawed Science: The fraudulent Research Practices of Social Psychologist Diederik Stapel: https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/upload/3ff904d7-547b-40ae-85fe-bea38e05a34a_Final%20report%20Flawed%20Science.pdf
Lewis M (1997) Poisoning the ivy: the seven deadly sins and other vices of higher education in America. ME Sharpe, New York
Lipman AG (2009) The pain drug fraud scandal: implications for clinicians, investigators, and journals. J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother 23(3):216–218
Magazanik M (2015) Silent shock. Text Publishing, Melbourne
Marcus A (25 June 2010) Reuben sentenced in fraud case. Anesthesiology News
Marcus A (2018) A scientist’s fraudulent studies put patients at risk. Science 362(6413):394
McBride W (1994) Killing the messenger, Eldorado Publishing, Sydney
McCook A (2 September 2016) Research fraud at Duke piles up. Real Clear Science: https://www.realclearscience.com/2016/09/02/research_fraud_at_duke_piles_up_272187.html
Mendoza M (12 July 2015) Allegations of fake medical research hit new high. BNC News: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8474936/ns/health-health_care/t/charges-fake-research-hit-new-high/#.XKrhny-B1UM
Miller DR (2012) Retraction of articles written by Dr Yoshitaka Fujii. Can J Anesth 59(12):1081–1084
Montgomery K, Oliver AL (2017) Conceptualizing fraudulent studies as viruses: new models for handling retractions. Minerva 55(1):49
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (2017) Fostering integrity in research. https://doi.org/10.17226/21896
National Institutes of Health, Grant Policy Statement (October 2018). https://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/nihgps/nihgps.pdf
Office of Research Integrity (2015) Definition of research misconduct. https://ori.hhs.gov/definition-misconduct
Office of Research Integrity, “About ORI” (2019). https://ori.hhs.gov/about-ori
Pelley S (5 March 2012) Deception at duke: fraud in cancer care? CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/deception-at-duke-fraud-in-cancer-care/
Petersdorf RG (1986) The pathogenesis of fraud in medical science. Ann Intern Med 104(2):252–254
Rao TSS, Andrade C (2011) The MMR vaccine and autism: sensation, refutation, retraction and fraud. Indian J Psychiatry 53(2):95–96
Reardon S (2015) US vaccine researcher sentenced to prison for fraud. Nature 523:7559. https://www.nature.com/news/us-vaccine-researcher-sentenced-to-prison-for-fraud-1.17660
Reich ES (2009) Plastic fantastic: how the biggest fraud in physics shook the scientific world. Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Reich ES (7 February 2012) Duplicate-Grant case puts funders under pressure. Nature 482(7384). https://www.nature.com/news/duplicate-grant-case-puts-funders-under-pressure-1.9984
Royal College of Physicians of London (1991) Fraud and misconduct in medical research: causes, investigation and prevention. J R Coll Physicians Lond 25(2):89–94
Royston M (2015) Retracted scientific studies: a growing list. The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/28/science/retractions-scientific-studies.html
Sabbagh K (2000) A Rum affair: a true story of botanical fraud. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York
Saunders R, Savulescu J (2008) Research ethics and lessons from Hwanggate: what can we learn from the Korean cloning fraud? J Med Ethics 34(3):214–221
Severinsen J (2014) Milena Penkowa – from famous to infamous. Science Nordic. http://sciencenordic.com/milena-penkowa-–-famous-infamous
Shuchman M (2005) The drug trial: Nancy Olivieri and the scandal that rocked the hospital for sick children. Random House, Toronto
Smith R (2006) Research misconduct: the poisoning of the well. J R Soc Med 99(5):232–237
Sprague RL (1993) Whistleblowing: a very unpleasant avocation. Ethics Behav 3(1):103–133
Stapel D (2012) Ontsporing (The Derailment) (trans: Brown N). Prometheus, Amsterdam. http://nick.brown.free.fr/stapel/FakingScience-20161115.pdf
Steen RG (2011) Date retractions in the scientific literature: is the incidence of research fraud increasing? J Med Ethics 37(4):249–253
Stern V (2012) Research misconduct on the rise. Clin Oncol News 7(12):24–26
Taubes G (1995) Plagiarism suit wins; experts hope it won’t set a trend. Science 265(5214):1125
Trager R (2018) Chaos at US Government Research Integrity Office. Chemistry World: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/chaos-at-us-governments-research-integrity-office/3008837.article
Van Der Weyden M (2006) Preventing and processing research misconduct: a new Australian code for responsible research. Med J Aust 184(9):430–431
Vastag B (2006) Cancer fraud case stuns research community, prompts reflection on peer review process. J Natl Cancer Inst 98(6):374–376
Wakefield A (2017) Callous disregard: autism and vaccines. In: The truth behind a tragedy. Simon & Schuster, New York
Wise J (2013) Boldt: The Great Pretender. Brit Med J 346:f1738
Zieler C (2019) Court Win for University of Copenhagen in Penkowa Case. Uniavisen: https://uniavisen.dk/en/court-win-for-university-of-copenhagen-in-enkowa-case/
Zwart H (2017) The Catwalk and the Mousetrap: Reading Diederik Stapel’s Derailment as a Misconduct Novel. In: Zwart H (ed) Tales of research misconduct. Library of ethics and applied philosophy, vol 36. Springer, Cham, pp 211–244. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65554-3_11
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Crown
About this entry
Cite this entry
Freckelton Q. C., I. (2020). Research Misconduct. In: Iphofen, R. (eds) Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16759-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16759-2_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-16758-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-16759-2
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities