Scientific Researchers Breaking the Rules
A recent flurry of gross scientific misconduct has brought light on a disturbing new trend-scientists engaging in everything from twisting test results to achieve a certain result to flat out fabrication and falsification. The world saw the worst when the breakthroughs in stem cell cloning by a South Korean researcher were found to be completely faked.
More close to home, in December we learned that Merck employees withheld critical data from the VIGOR study which first linked Vioxx with heart attacks. Another study released last October indicating that NSAIDs reduced the risk of oral cancer turned out to be completely fabricated.
Not to shift accountability away from the scientists who perform these studies, but the current environment for scientific research is fertile ground for fraud and malfeasance. Using drug companies as an example, millions of dollars go in to research for new and existing drugs. If the researchers do not already work for the drug company, they are handsomely rewarded to perform the study. The lure of big money has a way to create or mold a study that caters to goals of the financiers. To produce unbiased studies of significance, this financial carrot needs to be removed from the scientific process.
Read more about the trend in Forbes online here.
I think even merck is realizing they are in very deep water at this point
Two years ago I published a book on scientific misconduct and its cover-up. I have used the book to warn the scientific community and the public against the detrimental effect of greedy scientists on the scientific process and method. Unfortunately, many within the scientific community are either too naive or prefering to burry their heads in the sand, claiming that the problem is negligible. The percentage of dishonest scientists within the scientific community in not different from the percentage of dishonest poeple within the general population.