One Possible Cause of the Recent Increase in “Fraudulent” Research
Journal Title: Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR) - Year 2018, Vol 7, Issue 1
Abstract
Recently, some disturbing news has shaken the scientific research community. This news reported a decline in the accuracy of research data and the more frequent appearance of wrong or even falsified research results. A survey of scientists found that 33% of scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once –a serious form of misconduct by any standard. Furthermore, asking about this behavior of other colleagues, admission rates for this questionable scientific activity were up to 72%. Another survey screening the biomedical literature concluded that false positives and exaggerated results in peer-reviewed scientific studies have reached epidemic proportions in recent years. Similarly, a review published by industrial scientists found that they could only reproduce about one quarter of all published experiments. An opinion paper by Phys.Org stated that half of biomedical research will not stand up to scrutiny and it has been estimated that about 28 billion dollars are spent per year on irreproducible research [1-7]. While deceit in research has always existed, it was at a minuscule level in the past. Thus, the question arises, why this rapid increase in recent times. While a number of factors can be cited, the author will focus on one factor which he feels is most important in the USA where many universities and medical schools are private enterprises and faculty members are employed with various short and long term contracts. This factor is the use of research grants given to institutions and individual faculty members. These grants were established by The National Institutes of Health (NIH) to help individual researchers and institution to improve and to expand their existing research efforts. Unfortunately, this noble undertaking was soon exploited by institutions which eventually caused the decline in the quality of research performance. On a personal note, the author started his academic carrier in 1958 and obtained its first academic position at a prestigious Medical School in 1967. As the custom was at this time, he was afforded tenure as associate professor and was supplied by the institution with a laboratory, a research assistant and a budget to do research. However, it was expected that the research would result in publications but there was no pressure to do so quickly. During these times, faculty members at almost all medical institutions had tenure and were supported by their institutions to perform research. Due to the security of their positions and continuous laboratory support, they could concentrate fully on their work and had time to repeat and to repeat their experiments over and over again. There was no pressure and no need to “falsify” experimental data. Unfortunately, the design of the research grants had a number of features which were well meant but were quickly recognized and exploited by the administration of most academic institutions to the detriment of medical research. The first feature is that the NIH allowed the researcher to receive some of his/her salary from the grant. Most institutions did not use grant money for salary support in the past. The author still remembers vividly when proudly presenting his first grant in 1969 with 30% of his salary on it to the Dean for his signature – who told the author: take the 30% off because my faculty is being paid by “hard” and not “soft” money. This changed soon and institution indirectly applied pressure to the faculty to supplement their salary more and more with grant money. The second good feature of the grant was to supplement existing institutional research support so that the researcher could expand its scientific efforts.
Authors and Affiliations
Wolfgang H Vogel
Keywords
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- EP ID EP592673
- DOI 10.26717/BJSTR.2018.07.001433
- Views 163
- Downloads 0
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