Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3876

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Publication type: news

Munro M.
Medical researchers caught faking it
CanWest News Service 2006 Mar 16
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=a320fffa-9ff7-48b6-b975-86cdef0b4228&rfp=dta

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:

An area of society in which honesty is fundamentaly important is the area of scientific research.

When researchers ( hopefully only a small minority) are found to have faked research results, it casts a shadow of doubt over the entire sector.

And when the establishment closes ranks and refuses to cooperate with investigating authorities, the shadow of doubt deepens further.

Full text:

Medical researchers caught faking it
Federal grant recipients

Margaret Munro, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, March 16, 2006

More than a dozen scientists and doctors, several of them recipients of sizable federal grants, have been faking research, destroying data, plagiarizing or conducting experiments on people without necessary ethics approvals, the country’s lead research agencies report.

One medical researcher, who was awarded $1,347,445 for various projects, fabricated and falsified data and was permanently barred last year from receiving more federal money, according to documents obtained by CanWest News Service.

Another researcher altered and destroyed data and cannot apply for funding for three years.

A third researcher, who engaged in “academic dishonesty in publication,” has been barred from receiving more federal research money until next year.

Officials at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) say they cannot, under federal privacy laws, identity the researchers.

Officials at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) say they cannot, under federal privacy laws, identify the researchers.

But CIHR says it awarded more than $12-million to projects in which researchers have been found to be violating research ethics or integrity rules since 2003. They worked at Dalhousie University, McGill University, McMaster University, Sunnybrook & Women’s College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, the University of Alberta, the University of British Columbia, Universite de Montreal, and Universite de Sherbrooke.

No effort has been made to recoup the funds. The $1.3-million awarded to the researcher permanently barred from applying for CIHR funding has been transferred to his research partners, says Dr. Mark Bisby, the agency’s vice-president.

CIHR and NSERC distribute almost $1.5-billion tax dollars a year to close to 16,000 researchers and thousands more graduate students across the country.

Four Vancouver research projects, part of studies that received more than $3-million in federal grants, did not have ethics renewal certificates required under federal rules.

The researchers stopped enrolling patients in one trial and funding for the other projects, which UBC says were behavioural studies, was suspended until the certificates were in place.

Minutes of CIHR meetings show officials talked about freezing funding to all UBC researchers but CIHR officials decided against making the threat.

John Hepburn, UBC vice-president of research, said this week that cutting off all UBC funding — which he likened to “the atomic-bomb threat” — would have been “a grotesque overreaction.” He said it was not necessary since the university was anxious to resolve the problem.

He said UBC has spent several million dollars to improve the management and effectiveness of its ethics review process and remains committed to having the the best process in the country.

Under Canadian rules allegations of research misconduct received by CIHR are forwarded to the university where the alleged misconduct occurred. The university is asked to investigate and report back to CIHR, which has the power to freeze projects and bar researchers from receiving more research money.

American authorities appear to take a more direct approach.

Last year, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity tracked down Dr. Eric Poehlman at the Universite de Montreal and charged him with faking research on menopausal women between 1992 and 2002.

Dr. Poehlman moved from Vermont to Montreal in 2001 and subsequently received more than $1-million in Canadian research funds.

Dr. Poehlman’s job at the Universite de Montreal was terminated in January, 2005. He pleaded guilty in March, 2005, in what U.S. investigators called the worst case of scientific fakery in two decades.

U.S. investigators also revealed in 2003 that University of Alberta researcher Jianhua (James) Xu had been sneaking into a lab and doctoring experiments and altering results of a project funded by a U.S. agency. The university fired Mr. Xu, and U.S. authorities ruled that he had engaged in “significant” scientific misconduct and barred him from receiving U.S. funding for four years.

CIHR has also complained that its investigations are hampered by government secrecy and unco-operative universities.

The documents released by CIHR reveal universities, in some cases, have let misconduct investigations drag on so long that researchers accused of faking results or unethical conduct had moved on to new jobs or left the country.

Health Canada also refuses to share information that can be key to misconduct cases, according to the documents.

Health Canada is bound by privacy laws and is limited in the information it can share, says Jirina Vlk, a Health Canada media officer.

But she said the department is working with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to “facilitate the flow of information.”
© National Post 2006