I was not impressed by Dr Geggie’s article offering a survey of the attitudes of newly appointed consultants towards research fraud (J. Med. Ethics 2001; 27:344-346). Indeed, by mixing up categories of misconduct from what is at most “bad behaviour” to the very serious, he is not entirely beyond reproach himself. I remind readers that Dr Geggie suggested that 55.7% of the respondents had observed (from the title) “research fraud”.

If the term “research fraud” is to have any meaning, it must be reserved for conduct that consciously and deliberately attempts to impose a fraud on others. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences report “On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research” distinguishes clearly between “misallocation of credit, honest errors and errors caused through negligence” and “deception, making up data or results, changing or misreporting data or results, and plagiarism”. The former are “ethical transgressions … that generally remain internal to the scientific community .. dealt with locally through peer review, administrative action and the system of appointments and evaluations”. The latter “strike at the heart of the values on which science is based”. The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy reached similar conclusions, restricting research misconduct to “fabrication, falsification and plagarism”. I agree with these assessments.

In Dr Geggie’s paper, deception would include deliberate falsification of data (category 3 of Dr Geggie’s table 1), cheating (4A) and deliberately plagiarising without attribution (4D). We then move into fairyland, because Dr Geggie next asks “have you ever been an author on a paper for which any of the authors have not made a sufficient contribution to warrant credit for the work” or “has your name ever been omitted from a paper for which you had made a substantial contribution”, and, surprise, surprise, over half answered yes. These are examples of, at worst, ethical transgressions (but more often examples of delusions of grandeur on the part of the offended) but are not research fraud.

Those of us who run large research groups know from experience that authorship of any paper poses problems. I have never met anyone, from the cleaner to the director, who undervalued his/her own contribution to the work! The issue arises with such consistency that many labs (including my own) have long documents on how to resolve the problem of who goes on, and who stays off, the authors’ list. But research fraud? Give me a break!

Of those who responded, approximately 10% had personal knowledge of research fraud, and 5% at most (it is not possible to tell if there is overlap between those answering different questions) admitted to acts that could be regarded as research fraud. This corresponds to my own experience. I have spent more than 40 years in human molecular genetics, a very competitive field, of which 25 years has been spent running very large groups. I know the work of over 1000 scientists well. I have personal knowledge of one case of serious research fraud and perhaps three or four cases where the reporting of data was so careless as to verge on misconduct (though without intent to commit fraud). I also know of one case of plagiarism. To blur the boundaries between “research fraud”, “research misconduct”, “possible future misconduct”, and complaining about not getting your name on a paper does no one any good, and certainly does not help any rational discussion about research ethics.

Bob Williamson, MCRI