快猫短视频

FOR 13 years, Scott Reuben was at the top of his profession. An anaesthesiologist at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, he was an influential figure in the treatment of post-operative pain. But in March, Reuben was exposed as a fraud. An internal audit found that he had faked 21 of his studies. As a result of his misconduct, thousands of patients may have been treated with drugs that did nothing to aid their recovery.

When the fraud came to light, the editor-in-chief of the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia, which published 10 of the fraudulent papers, was quoted saying that he couldn鈥檛 fathom Reuben鈥檚 behaviour. 鈥淭he act of fabricating data is so difficult for me to comprehend,鈥� . The journal was informed of the fraud on 22 January and around a month later.

Shafer鈥檚 bafflement seems surprising. As in all spheres of life, science has its fair share of wrongdoers. Fraud has always been part of the scientific landscape.

Yet stunned inaction in the face of misconduct allegations is not uncommon. In 2005, when 快猫短视频 uncovered irregularities in research published in the journal Immunity by Luk Van Parijs, the journal took no action. The California Institute of Technology, where Van Parijs had worked, informed Immunity of the problem in 2007. It still took no action. In January this year, the US Department of Health and Human Services , but it wasn鈥檛 until April that the journal eventually .

It is too much to expect journals to spot all fraudulent research in advance, or to come to an instant conclusion on papers containing alleged fraud. But editors could make a difference by taking prompt action.

They can do this as soon as concerns arise. In 2005, when The New England Journal of Medicine learned of problems with a on the recently withdrawn drug Vioxx, it responded by publishing an 鈥溾��. The study has not been retracted but the expression of concern stands.

Similarly, when 快猫短视频 exposed problems with stem cell research at the University of Minnesota, the journal Blood used a 鈥渘otice of concern鈥� to flag the research until investigations were complete. The paper in question was eventually .

Another tool is the technical comment, in which independent experts are given room to dispute a finding. In the case of Jan Hendrik Schon, the physics fraudster whose case I cover in my book, editors at Nature rejected a technical comment that would have cast doubt on Schon鈥檚 work six months before the fraud emerged.

If editors have anything to fear from scientific fraud, it is that they look complicit or incompetent when it comes to light. The number-one way to combat this is to be less astonished and more prepared to challenge and correct research in the same journal that published it.

鈥淚f journal editors have anything to fear from fraud it is that they look complicit when it comes to light鈥�