More than 10% of practitioners in the life sciences field are committing fraud because they know that peer reviews cannot find the fakes they make.
In July this year, a major earthquake occurred in the field of Alzheimer's disease . Matthew Schrag, assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University in the United States, disclosed to the outside world that a foundation paper published in " Nature " in 2006 was suspected of forging data and images, misleading the industry for 16 years. A large number of subsequent achievements based on this research may be silenced.
In fact, academic misconduct is more common than the public expects.
In 2015, Science magazine withdrew a paper after a graduate student pointed out an inappropriate investigation method. In the same year, the United States Office of Scientific Research Integrity (ORI) announced that a revolutionary anti-cancer genomic technology that claims to "can save 10,000 lives a year" has been fabricated by its R&D team. Coincidentally, the first article introducing the technology was also published in " Nature-Medical " in 2006.
Dutch National Research Integrity Survey (DNS) in 2022 showed that more than half of the respondents have conducted "problematic scientific research practices", such as selecting references purposefully to strengthen their results.
10.4% of respondents in the fields of life sciences and medicine admitted that they had fabricated or forged data in the past 3 years - this ratio is better than all other fields.
2006 Alzheimer's paper fraud case especially reflects the chain reaction of academic misconduct.
Until July this year, this paper has been regarded as a golden rule, confirming the theory that "Aβ*56 amyloid formed by smaller healthy proteins in brain tissue can cause dementia". Its conclusions have inspired a series of new work and funding, and even pharmaceutical companies follow this idea to develop Alzheimer's disease drugs designed to break down amyloid or prevent it from forming.
Indeed, the β-amyloid theory is still the theoretical cornerstone of Alzheimer's disease research. Aβ*56 is just an subtype of many amyloid proteins. Its collapse cannot destroy the entire academic high-rise building, but the price we paid for this fraud case is undoubtedly heavy.
If Sylvain Lesné, the creator of Aβ*56 and the first author of the paper, introduced his work realistically, if the academic and industry examined Lesné's achievements with a more cautious attitude, massive amounts of funds could have been invested in a more promising direction. It should be noted that The National Institutes of Health (NIH) spent about $1.6 billion on projects involving amyloid in the last fiscal year, accounting for half of its total Alzheimer's disease research funding.
At present, other results published by Lesnet are also under investigation for academic misconduct. Many people will have this question, why did the blockbuster papers in 2006 be falsified until 2022?
exposes the lies of other scientists
may cause disgust and notoriety
Academic circles certainly have safeguards to prevent and detect academic fraud. For example, articles in well-known journals must undergo strict peer review (this is the main method to ensure the quality of publications); institutions such as ORI mentioned above will also conduct investigations on scientific research misconduct. But these are obviously not enough.
Academic journals should implement more powerful integrity guarantee measures in the early stage of the publication process to reduce the possibility of fraud from the source. The scientific community should encourage researchers to report fraud without any concerns when necessary.
Ideally, papers with misleading or fraudulent data can be identified before publication; however, current peer-reviewed paper inspection systems are not sufficient to achieve this ideal.
An international survey in 2012 showed that most scholars interviewed believe that it is difficult to detect academic fraud in by peer review of .
Scientific historian Melinda Baldwin
pointed out: "The purpose of peer review is not to look for fraud, and most fraud incidents are revealed after publication.”
The previous cases are sufficient to illustrate that even peer reviewers in top journals are difficult to detect fraud; sometimes, some serious (even almost obvious) fraud can escape the eyes of peers. Taking the hydroxychloroquine incident that has been constantly reversed as an example:
On May 22, 2020, The Lancet published a paper saying that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine may increase COVID-19 patients' mortality rate and heart disease incidence rate; on May 25, WHO announced the suspension of clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine.
But just one week later, WHO announced the restart of the trial, and The Lancet quickly withdrew the paper that sentenced hydroxychloroquine to death because there were serious "scientific problems" (suspicion of fraud).
Not long after, the WHO decided to stop the trial again because they determined that hydroxychloroquine would not reduce Patient mortality rate.
Not long before the Lancet fraud storm, the team that created the controversial paper had published other suspected fraud results on the New England Journal of Medicine
(NEJM) . Of course, the magazine quickly withdrew the article.
the above case has great political significance, and its huge attention has attracted has enabled academic fraud. It was discovered quickly. However, most studies are not the case. Further standardization and systematization is needed for the review and questioning of academic integrity.
Due to insufficient peer review, rapid detection of papers after publication has become particularly important. . We need brave reporters, and Reporters need a sense of security and need to be able to expose lies without concerns.
2016 "Handbook" (Handbook of Academic An article in is based on a series of case studies, proving that "the whistleblower may encounter challenges and retaliation, and exposing the lies of other scientists may lead to disgust and notoriety."
This is also the reason why ORI and other investigative agencies are often in poor terms:
whistleblower is generally in the same field, the same circle, or even the same institution, and the same office as the whistleblower, and he may face huge social pressure. The resistance before the report and the isolation after the report often discourage him.
Aβ*56's lies are priced at 18,000
On the other hand, discovering academic fraud must require a lot of professional reserves and time investment. Before reporting, they need to prepare sufficient evidence to prove that the alleged scholars have committed academic fraud "deliberately, informally and without scruples". Schrager, the whistleblower of the
Aβ*56 incident, checked his paper in detail and reported his discovery to NIH. But before he worked hard, a lawyer investigating the Alzheimer's disease experimental drug Simufilam paid him $18,000 in labor fees. (If the experimental drug Simufilam is found to be problematic, the lawyer's client will benefit. In addition, the specialist in Science The team spent 6 months to independently investigate and verify Schrager's statement. )
If there is no such $18,000, will Schrager still track down old articles?
If the academic community first uses standard specifications and specializes in reviewing the so-called "breaking basic research", then does it take 16 years to expose the Aβ*56 lies?
In addition, we should regularly re-evaluate basic research because the ever-evolving technology can provide more advanced and comprehensive measurement and analysis methods. Old research under the examination of new technologies (the research results were once very reliable) may have passed.
In order to make such reassessment a routine, journals should encourage more papers to use the latest measurement techniques and methodologies to evaluate old results with high citations. If we look at scientific data with such a dynamic perspective, we will be easier to question the basic theories, and reporting is naturally common.
related departments should convey the message that "we encourage reporting academic misconduct" and reassure the reporter, "we will definitely support and protect you."
exposing academic misconduct should be a "routine operation", because one of the jobs of scientists is to question existing knowledge and break through scientific boundaries.Of course, we should not destroy science, but promote science's self-question and breakthroughs.
Source:
Science Needs Better Fraud Detection – And More Whistleblowers
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