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The Code of Misconduct

Scientific misconduct is more than falsification , fabrication , and plagiarism – and harder to identify .

In 1998 , Andrew Wakefield , MD , and co-authors investigated a cohort of 12 children with chronic digestive problems who were experiencing symptoms of regressive developmental disorder . All children , they reported , had a history of normal development and neurologic and psychological assessments revealed no abnormalities . After ruling out other contributing factors , Dr . Wakefield ’ s team concluded that both the gastrointestinal and behavioral symptoms were caused by an “ environmental trigger ”: administration of the measles , mumps , and rubella ( MMR ) vaccine . 1
They published their results in The Lancet and , though small , the study was impactful . After media outlets picked up the research , parents seized upon the apparent connection between the onset of regressive autism and the routine vaccination .
Twelve years later , the journal retracted the article , citing an investigation by the British General Medical Council that found “ several elements ” of research misconduct . The patients included in the trial were carefully selected and some of the research was funded by lawyers acting on behalf of parents who were involved in lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers . 2 Ultimately , the Council charged Dr . Wakefield with dozens of allegations of misconduct , from failing to report conflicts of interest to showing “ callous disregard ” for the children in his study by subjecting them to invasive tests .
But the damage was already done . Many parents chose not to vaccinate their children in hopes of reducing autism risk . Soon , outbreaks of measles and mumps started cropping up in the U . S ., the U . K ., and Canada , with a concurrent drop in the number of children receiving the MMR vaccine .
The saga of the autism-vaccination paper is one of the most visible examples of research misconduct . A Google search for the original The Lancet article yields several reports of its retraction , and the article ’ s webpage is watermarked with “ RETRACTED ” in large red letters . Dr . Wakefield ’ s paper also falls directly into the U . S .’ s government-wide definition of research misconduct : fabrication , falsification , or plagiarism – FFP , for short – in proposing , performing , or reviewing research , or in reporting research results ( see SIDEBAR 1 , opposite page ). 3
Unfortunately , many cases of research misconduct are not black and white , according to Ivan Oransky , MD , distinguished writer in residence at New York University ’ s Carter Journalism Institute and co-founder of RetractionWatch . com . Most , he contended , fall into a gray area between honest error and intentional deceit .
“ In the past several years , there has been more recognition that the [ U . S . Department of Health and Human Services ’] Office of Research Integrity ’ s ( ORI ’ s ) definition may be too tight and too restrictive ,” Dr . Oransky told ASH Clinical News . “ There are other questionable research practices that would not meet the criteria for misconduct , but that are clearly detrimental to the research record and to science .” ASH Clinical News recently spoke with Dr . Oransky and several other experts in the field of ethics about the definition of misconduct and , once misconduct is identified , who is responsible for righting the wrong .
Defining Misconduct
Cases of FFP fall at one extreme end of the spectrum of research misconduct , according to Jennifer A . Byrne , PhD , professor of molecular oncology in the discipline of child and adolescent health at The University of Sydney School of Medicine in Australia .
“ Misconduct occurs when someone is doing something wrong and he or she is pretty confident that it is wrong ,” Dr . Byrne said . “ There are other cases where people do things that aren ’ t good scientific practice or could perhaps be classified as ‘ honest error .’”
Honest error could include calculation errors , poor experimental design , or even some forms of plagiarism that are unintentional . For example , certain papers have been retracted when a well-respected researcher was found to have “ self-plagiarized ,” using content verbatim in one journal that was published previously in another journal . 4
In another case , authors issued a retraction of a paper testing the expression of the erythropoietin gene in a human renal cell line after other laboratories testing the cell line discovered that it had been unknowingly cross-contaminated . 5
Other examples of detrimental research practices include cherry-picking data , ignoring outlier values , hacking p values ( or manipulating data analysis to find statistically significant patterns ), designing clinical trials with certain results in mind , only
56 ASH Clinical News September 2018