Allegations of fake research hit new high

AP ^ | 7-9-05 | Martha Mendoza

[Dan from Michigan]

Anyone remember Michael Bellesille and his BS Arming America research. That discredited book was actually cited by a dissenting gun grabbing judge in the Emerson Case.

[petitfour]

Unreal. Any FR women interested in taking any birth control drugs from Ortho??????????

[Brian328i]

Well, its a good thing we know that Climate Change data is not falsified.

[corkoman]

It stuns me when I discover someone "Dry Lab"ing complete 20 patient clinical studies. Dry Lab = you just made it up, filled-out the data forms, processed them into a database, ran reports drafted manuscripts and stood at podiums blabbing about your insightful project.

It kills me to discover a fake study and I get embarrassed for the investigator, people I have met more than once, so I pretend to go along and not say anything. Out of embarrassment.

[solitas]

Ortho-McNeil spokeswoman Bonnie Jacobs said the company was well aware of Friedman's history when it hired him.

Sounds like it's now a good company not to buy anything from - how can you trust what it says about its products, considering who's on its staff?

[6SJ7]

David Wright, a Michigan State University professor who has researched why scientists cheat, said there are four basic reasons: some sort of mental disorder; foreign nationals who learned somewhat different scientific standards; inadequate mentoring; and, most commonly, tremendous and increasing professional pressure to publish studies.

The professor missed a reason; a lack of a belief in right and wrong.

[satchmodog9]

Dr. Gary Kammer, a Wake Forest University rheumatology professor and leading lupus expert, was found to have made up two families and their medical conditions in grant applications to the National Institutes of Health. He has resigned from the university and has been suspended from receiving federal grants for three years.

Suspended for three years from receiving federal grants? Lifetime ban is more like it.

[satchmodog9]

How about subsidizing their lifestyles so they don't have to do real work. This is fraud and it should be prosecuted as such in each case.

[ReadyNow]

Wake Forest? That's also home of Maya Angelou, the racist poet, who ALSO has her problems with integrity.

[JohnEBoy]

"He did seek help, both from a psychiatrist, who counseled him to cut back, and from his boss, who demanded Friedman increase his research and refused to reduce Friedman's patient load."

Sounds like the boss from hell.

[Humidston]

Maybe it's time our country revisit honor, dignity, integrity and honesty.

Otherwise, we're doomed.

[Thebaddog]

Who paid for the good Dr's research into why arrogant, self-important perfesssers break the law by falsifying federally funded research?

[satchmodog9]

Maybe Okra Winfrey can have her on the show this year to discus Hermes attitude about letting blacks in after hours.

[republican2005]

im sure none of the global warming data is made up...

lol

[Doctor Stochastic]

It kills me to discover a fake study and I get embarrassed for the investigator,...

I ususally just write a letter to the editor of the journal that published the study (if I just read it) or give it a bad review (if I reviewed it). I also try to keep people who do such shoddy work from ever getting a job in the scientific field. (I'm not very successful, naturally.) When I was a college professor, I just gave the guy an F and let it go at that.

[The Great RJ]

Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, The 1970's we're all gonna die from overpopulation classic The Population Bomb, the studies on global warming showing the "hockey stick" graph and the works of Ward Churchill all come to mind as examples of phony if not fraudulent scholarship.

[LRS]

David Wright, a Michigan State University professor who has researched why scientists cheat, said there are four basic reasons:

You don't say, David! Gee, what are those "4" reasons?

some sort of mental disorder;

Yeah. It's called liberalism.

foreign nationals who learned somewhat different scientific standards;

Yeah. Our march towards more liberalism requires us to keep lowering our standards to meet theirs.

inadequate mentoring;

Liberals spreading liberalism

and, most commonly, tremendous and increasing professional pressure to publish studies.

Liberalism requires results to support it. It doesn't matter how those results are obtained. Sort of like trying to sneak a clumsy attempt to blame problems on compitition all the time, while ignoring the real causes for those problems. You wouldn't do that now would you, David?

[indthkr]

"Maybe it's time our country revisit honor, dignity, integrity and honesty."

We don't have to worry about that kind of stuff. We can hire publicists and attorneys who will prove to a judge/jury in open court that we haven't acted dishonorably. If the glove don't fit, you can't convict! Then you can write book about your ordeal, or become another Boss on The Apprentice.

/sarcasm off

[TASMANIANRED]

The government needs to get out of the funding business.

It is not a constitutional mandate.

Competition for research dollars inside the university system drives fraud.

[okie01]

•On July 18, Eric Poehlman, once a prominent nutrition researcher, will be sentenced in federal court in Vermont for fabricating research data to obtain a $542,000 federal grant while working as a professor at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He faces up to five years in prison. Poehlman, 49, made up research between 1992 and 2000 on issues like menopause, aging and hormone supplements to win millions of dollars in grant money from the federal government.

I hear the pool of grant money for climate change research is so large you could float the Queen Mary in it. I can't imagine anybody fabricating results in that highly scientific field, though...