BRITAIN needs a national body to crack down on fraudulent medical
researchers. This recommendation comes from the Committee of Publication Ethics,
which includes the editors of prominent medical journals.
The committee was sparked into action by several high-profile
frauds鈥攊ncluding the case of Malcolm Pearce of St George鈥檚 Hospital in
London, who falsely claimed to have brought an ectopic pregnancy to term by
transplanting the fetus into the uterus.
The committee鈥檚 chairman, Michael Farthing, a gastroenterologist at
St Bartholomew鈥檚 Hospital in London and editor of Gut, argues that Britain
needs a body similar to the US Office of Research Integrity (ORI). 鈥淣ow is the
time to act,鈥� he says.
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That alarms some researchers, as the ORI has been dogged by controversy.
Several of its guilty verdicts have subsequently been overturned by the US
government. And in 1995 a review panel led by Kenneth Ryan of Harvard University
censured the ORI for being both judge and jury in such investigations.
Peter Lachmann of the University of Cambridge, biological secretary of the
Royal Society, says: 鈥淭he cure shouldn鈥檛 be worse than the disease.鈥�