[SANET-MG] faces of science fraud

[jcummins <jcummins@UWO.CA>]

Three faces of science fraud
By Prof David Schubert
The San Diego Union Tribune, February 16, 2006
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060216/news_lz1e16schuber.html

There has recently been a great deal of media attention directed toward 
Woo Suk Hwang, the Korean scientist who fabricated results concerning a 
technical advance in the field of stem cell research. While this sort of 
behavior is indefensible, it is perhaps the least harmful among the 
different types of scientific fraud that are currently taking place.

The reason for this is that in the world of academic science to which 
Hwang belongs, incorrect new claims are rapidly discovered and discarded 
because other laboratories cannot reproduce them. However, if fraud is 
defined as the creation or manipulation of data to achieve a specific 
end, then the type of scientific misconduct perpetrated by some 
industries and the Bush administration is much more serious and has led 
to extensive human suffering.

The goal of academic science is both to develop a rational understanding 
of the world and to create ideas and technologies for human benefit. The 
product of this work is usually data published as manuscripts in 
scientific journals. Scientists send a manuscript describing their work 
to a journal, the editors then forward it to two or three expert 
reviewers, and a judgement is made as to whether the conclusions from 
the data are correct and of sufficient interest to publish.

In reality, publication is more complicated because of the goals of the 
scientists and the perceived eminence of the journals. Although the 
major interest of most scientists is the creation of knowledge, for 
others it is primarily self-promotion. The latter group, which I assume 
includes Dr. Hwang, puts more pressure on the high-profile journals to 
publish their work because these journals receive more media attention 
and are seen by science administrators as being more prestigious, 
leading to better jobs and more research support for the scientist.

However, irrespective of the scientist's goal, if the work is important, 
it is going to be repeated by other laboratories. In the case of Hwang, 
the techniques that have led to his notoriety could not be substantiated 
and the fraud was rapidly detected.

In contrast, the type of scientific fraud that is carried out by some 
industries and biotech companies, whose only goal is to sell a product, 
is often not rapidly self-correcting. The government regulates 
commercial entities that have the potential to make harmful products, 
but there is continual pressure on politicians and regulatory agencies 
to reduce regulatory requirements. The well-orchestrated procedures to 
use fraudulent science to sell a product were first developed by the 
tobacco companies, and the success rate using this technique has greatly 
accelerated with our current administration in Washington.

If there is opposition to the introduction of a product from a consensus 
of scientists, usually in the form of proposals for increased government 
oversight, then companies will employ their own scientists to publish 
manuscripts in an attempt to discredit the consensus. These manuscripts 
frequently contain experiments that only have an illusionary relevance 
to the problem, but are used in PR campaigns to create scientific 
uncertainty about the science in order to block the regulation.

There are several recent examples of the success of this approach. The 
chemical industry used it to persuade the Environmental Protection 
Agency to roll back regulations that require companies to notify 
neighborhoods that are being exposed to toxic waste that most scientists 
say is dangerous. The plant biotech industry has repeatedly made false 
claims about the safety of their genetically engineered, or GE, food 
crops and has tried to discredit scientists who publish manuscripts 
showing that they are harmful. For example, several years ago Dr. Arpad 
Pusztai showed that GE potatoes cause serious health problems in rats, 
resulting in the harassment by the plant biotech industry and ultimately 
in his dismissal from his academic position. Since then, several other 
scientists have shown that different GE food crops cause similar 
problems, and it was discovered that one of the companies that tried to 
discredit Pusztai withheld their own data showing that GE corn is toxic 
to animals.

As a result of this disingenuous behavior of the chemical and plant 
biotech industries, there is a moratorium in many European countries on 
the cultivation of GE food crops and a requirement that all new 
chemicals that are consumed or reach the environment be extensively 
tested for safety.

An even greater impact of fraudulent science on human health arises from 
the control that the White House is now exerting over regulatory 
agencies such as the EPA and the Food and Drug Administration. In the 
past, these agencies have operated as independent entities, and their 
decisions were based upon the best science available. Recently, however, 
these agencies have been forced to bend the facts of science to fit the 
political agenda of the Bush administration. Examples of this behavior 
abound, from the rewrite of an EPA study on global warming to the recent 
report that Jay Slack, a senior member of the Department of Interior's 
Fish and Wildlife Service, deliberately faked environmental impact data 
that allowed the development of a housing development in the Everglades. 
For this well-documented political manipulation of science, he was 
promoted within the department. Finally, fraudulent statements have 
appeared on government Web sites claiming that some birth control 
medications and devices are either carcinogenic or ineffective. The 
global extension of these positions will be disastrous for the Earth and 
have already increased death and suffering due to AIDS and 
overpopulation in African countries, where U.S. policy has reduced 
access to contraception.

The examples outlined above demonstrate that scientific fraud carried 
out by both industry and government is not uncommon in the United 
States. Similar behavior in the academic community may also be growing 
in proportion to the increase in the number of scientists and the 
competition for limited funding and job opportunities. However, the 
consequences of industrial and government fraud are far worse than 
academic misconduct, for the former are often neither self correcting 
nor reversible until a great deal of damage is done.

Schubert is a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.








             

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