Preventing Scientific Fraud
Authors: Harold C. Sox, Drummond Rennie
Journal: Annals of Internal Medicine (2006)

Letters19 September 2006Preventing Scientific FraudHarold C. Sox, MD, Editor and Drummond Rennie, MDHarold C. Sox, MD, EditorFrom the American College of Physicians, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and The Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California.Search for more papers by this author and Drummond Rennie, MDFrom the American College of Physicians, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and The Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-145-6-200609190-00020 SectionsAboutFull TextPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail IN RESPONSE: Dr. Noble feels that journals should do more to prevent scientific fraud. He proposes that journals do an in-depth investigation of randomly chosen articles. Research misconduct is almost always detected inside the institution. In 1988, Dr. Rennie proposed doing such a random audit of accepted manuscripts as an experiment, the results to be published only in aggregate (1, 2). The idea was to measure the frequency of the grossest forms of misconduct, for example, how often researchers sent in papers based entirely on fabricated patients, as had happened in the cases of Soman and of Darsee (3). Dr. ...References1. Rennie D. The Editor: Mark, Dupe, Patsy, Accessory, Weasel, and Flatfoot. Presentation before the Conference on Ethics and Policy in Scientific Publication. October 1988. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC. In: Ethics and Policy in Scientific Publication. Bethesda, MD: Council of Biology Editors; 1990. Google Scholar2. Rennie D. How much fraud? Let's do an experimental audit. AAAS Observer. 1989;6 Jan:4. Google Scholar3. Rennie D. Editors and auditors. JAMA. 1989;261:2543-5. [PMID: 2704114] CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar4. Broad W, Wade N. Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science. New York: Simon & Schuster; 1982. Google Scholar5. Kennedy D. Good news—and bad [Editorial]. Science. 2006;311:145. [PMID: 16410489] CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar Author, Article, and Disclosure InformationAffiliations: From the American College of Physicians, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and The Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California.Disclosures: None disclosed. PreviousarticleNextarticle Advertisement FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsSee AlsoResearch Misconduct, Retraction, and Cleansing the Medical Literature: Lessons from the Poehlman Case Harold C. Sox and Drummond Rennie Preventing Scientific Fraud David W. Noble Preventing Scientific Fraud Eugene Garfield , Marie McVeigh , and Marion Muff Preventing Scientific Fraud Dominique R. Garrel , Rémi Rabasa-Lhoret , and Pierre Boyle Metrics 19 September 2006Volume 145, Issue 6Page: 473-474KeywordsConflicts of interestForensicsResearch reporting guidelinesScientific misconductStatistical methods ePublished: 19 September 2006 Issue Published: 19 September 2006 Copyright & PermissionsCopyright © 2006 by American College of Physicians. All Rights Reserved.PDF downloadLoading ...