Biomedical Research

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Biomedical Research Honor in science
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Good Science is Honest Science
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Can you be a good scientist?

• Always honest?
• Always obey laws?

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Can you be a good scientist?
Always honest? Always obey laws?

• 48 college students admitted cheating in school
• 100 saw others cheat and did not report it

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Can you be a good scientist?
Always honest? Always obey laws?

• Reasons for coming to a complete stop
• Safety of others and self
• Obeying law
• Ticket

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No one looks over a scientists shoulder to
police honesty.
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Science requires higher standards of ethical
behavior than expected of rest of world.
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• Careful observation
• Thorough hypothesis testing
• Good record keeping
• Complete presentation of results
• Objective data analysis
• Honest credit distribution

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Careful Observation

• Consider experimenter
• effects in experimental
• design and data analysis.
• (ex. Clever Hans, praying mantis)

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Thorough Hypothesis Testing

• Consider alternative hypotheses
• Survey / experiment
• Appropriate design
• Controls

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How is record keeping related to ethics?
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What is scientific data?

• Information in
• Notebooks
• Graphs
• Tables
• Photos
• Tapes (video and audio)
• Electronic media

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Scientific data

• Ownership
• Correcting mistakes
• Organization
• Storage

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Case 1

• David Baltimore, Nobel laureate, former MIT
  biologist, President of Rockefeller University
• Tereza Imanishi-Kari, Assistant Professor MIT
• Co-authors of 1986 paper in Cell
• Margaret OTool, postdoc MIT, charged
  Imanishi-Kari of falsifying data

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Case 1

• Preliminary hearing at MIT
• Congressional hearing by oversight and
  Investigations subcommittee of the House Energy
  and Commerce Committee

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Case 1

• Secret Service analysis 1/3 of info in
  Imanishi-Karis notebooks was not authentic
• Imanishi-Kari admitted to recording data months
  after they had been performed.

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Case 1

• Spurred debate in D.C. over whether to set a
  standard for documentation of scientific
  research.
• Most scientists think D.C. is overreacting.
• Importance of making unbiased notes on day of
  experiment.

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Presentation of Results

• Include all relevant results.
• Do not transform data to be misleading.

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Objective data analysis

• Statistical analysis
• Interpretation of results
• Fair assessment of publications

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Honest credit distribution

• Citations
• Acknowledgments
• Authorship

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Authorship

• 2 out of following
• design
• execution
• analysis
• writing

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Many journals require a signed affidavit assuring
that authors have read the manuscript prior to
submission and are fully aware of its content and
that no substantial portion of the research has
been published or is being submitted for
publication elsewhere.
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Rules for order of authorship

• British alphabetical order
• American others order of importance to the
  project

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Case 2 (from American Society for Zoologists)

• Joe, grad student, studies blood samples from
  southern aardvarks.
• Sue, undergrad, volunteer, field assistant to
  Joe, offered second authorship in lieu of money.

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Case 2

• Prof. Smith offers technician to analyze hormone
  levels in blood samples in exchange for second
  authorship.
• Prof. Jones send blood samples from northern
  aardvark Joe offers second authorship.
• Prof. Mott, supervisor, away on sabbatical,
  provided Joes research assistantship.

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Case 2

• Joe analyzes and interprets data, writes paper by
  himself and lists Joe, Sue, Smith, Jones and Mott
  as authors
• Mott furious Authorship implies INTELLECTUAL
  contribution!!!
• Mott says only he and Joe should be authors

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Reasons for honesty in science

• Science builds upon itself
• Does not reinvent wheel
• Errors in foundation are compounded

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Types of Fraud in Science

• Plagiarism
• Trimming
• Cooking
• Forging
• Misuse of statistical techniques

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Plagiarism

• taking credit for work of others
• copying paraphrasing patchwork
  uncited ideas

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Plagiarism

• stealing words or ideas

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Trimming

• smoothing irregularities to make
• data look accurate, precise

current
time
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Trimming
smoothing irregularities to make data look
accurate, precise
current
time
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Cooking

• retaining results that fit
• hypothesis and discarding others

pain
log drug
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Cooking
retaining results that fit hypothesis and
discarding others
pain
log drug
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Forging
fabricating data or whole experiments
color intensity
time
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Forging

• fabricating data or
• whole experiments

color intensity
time
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Forging
fabricating data or whole experiments
color intensity
time
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Forging
fabricating data or whole experiments
color intensity
time
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Misuse of Statistical Techniques

• Use appropriate techniques
• Understand computer programs
• Seek help if necessary

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Commit fraud

• scientific career in
• jeopardy (probably over)
• and deserves to be!

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Occurrence of fraud in science

• Lower than general public incidence of fraud
• Reasons some scientists turn to fraud
• Deterrents to fraud in science

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Preventing Fraud in Science

• Society level
• Lab director level
• Peer level

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Society Level

• loss of job
• loss of funding

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Lab Director Level

• Good record keeping (raw data)
• Contact with lab investigators
• Regular lab meetings
• Lab environment without internal competition
• Encourage results regardless of whether they
  support lab hypotheses

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Peer Level

• Communication between lab members
• Replicate experiments
• Peer review process
• Healthy skepticism about findings.

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"...science must contain an ... organized
system of skepticism.... improves the quality of
scientific investigation and reduces the extent
of possible frauds."

• Kohn (1988)

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Scientists must be concerned with both fraud and
errors.
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• Research is liable to involve errors.
• Scientists have a moral obligation to minimize
  error by checking the accuracy of their data and
  conclusions.

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"... ethical principle that has made science
possible is that the truth shall be told all the
time. If we do not penalize false statements made
in error, we open the way for false
statements by intention. A false statement of
fact, made deliberately, is the most serious
crime a scientist can commit."

• Snow
  (1959)

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• Can only disprove theories
• Science is full of uncertainties
• Because of these uncertainties that accuracy in
  research and in reporting research results
  becomes so important.

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In some situations, ethical issues are clear cut.
In many others, this is not the case.
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Case 3

• Referee suppresses
• publication of a rival's work.
• Quickly repeats it and rushes
• own account to publication.

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Case 4

• Referee subconsciously
• influenced by someone elses
• grant proposal. Begins work
• on new project. Referee is a
• more senior scientist and
• gets publication out faster.

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Victims of dishonesty

• Medical research
• patients suffer or die
• Environmental research
• ecosystem
• Agricultural research
• consumers

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Case 5

• Professor copied articles
• word-for-word from obscure
• journals and published in
• other obscure journals under
• his own name.

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Victims?

• Students
• University
• Journal
• Readers
• Original Authors
• Scientists who did not
• get the plagiarists jobs

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Most people are usually honest.

• How do we behave when
• The task is tedious or complicated?
• A lot at stake?
• Nobody watching?

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Antipiracy Act

• Increases property rights of databases owners
• Could limit use by scientists

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Distribution of Research Materials

• Whose responsibility to see that scientists have
  access to data?
• What if they are trade secrets?
• Should the public have access?

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Government Control of Science

• United States Department of Agriculture
• Environmental Protection Agency
• National Science Foundation
• National Institutes of Health
• Military

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Funding

• Difficulties of young investigators getting
  funding "old boys' club".
• Which projects should
• be funded?

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Commercialization of Clinical Drug Trials
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Paid Consultant

• (ex. tobacco industry)
• Writing letters to
• editors.

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Acknowledgments

• Dr. Gail D. Burd, University of Arizona
• Dr. Lucinda L. Rankin, University of Arizona
• Honor in Science Sigma Xi
• On Being a Scientist National Academy of
  Sciences