Misconduct in scientific research ‘alive and well’

MORE than one in 10 British-based scientists or doctors have witnessed colleagues intentionally altering or fabricating data during their research, according to a survey by the British Medical Journal.

The survey collated more than 2,700 responses and found that 6% of scientists said they were aware of possible research misconduct at their institution that had not been properly investigated.

The results suggest “research misconduct is alive and well in the UK”, the journal said in a statement, and highlights the need for better systems to deter, detect and investigate it.

According to editor-in-chief Fiona Godlee, high-profile cases of misconduct have led many other countries, including the US, Canada, Sweden, Norway and Poland, to create formal mechanisms for overseeing research integrity.

“Why does the United Kingdom have no plans to do the same?” she wrote.

Doctors were asked if they had “witnessed or have first-hand knowledge of UK-based scientists or doctors inappropriately adjusting, excluding, altering or fabricating data during their research or for the purposes of publication” — to which 13% said yes.

Godlee said the results exposed as myth the idea that research misconduct was rare in Britain.

One of the most high-profile and damaging cases in recent years involved Andrew Wakefield, the now disgraced doctor who researchers believe falsified data for a 1998 study which convinced thousands of parents that MMR vaccines are linked to autism.

Wakefield was exposed and struck off the medical register in Britain in 2010 after his paper was discredited and withdrawn by the original publisher, Lancet.

Godlee said there was “a prevailing view within the research establishment that we don’t have a problem; that a major global scandal like Wakefield’s... is a one-off”.

The survey’s results tell a different story, she said.