Fall Of Top US Scientists Reveals Bad Science in Numerous Fields

Three prominent US scientists have been pushed to resign over the past 10 days after damning revelations about their methods, a sign of greater vigilance and decreasing tolerance for misconduct within the research community.

The most spectacular fall concerned Jose Baselga, the chief medical officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He authored hundreds of articles on cancer research.

Investigative journalism group ProPublica and The New York Times revealed on September 8 that Baselga failed to disclose in dozens of research articles that he had received millions of dollars from pharmaceutical and medical companies.

Such declarations are generally required by scientific journals.

Links between a doctor leading a clinical trial and manufacturers of drugs or medical equipment used in the study can influence the methodology and ultimately the results.

But journals don’t themselves verify the thoroughness of an author’s declarations.

Caught up in the scandal, Baselga resigned on September 13.

Next came the case of Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at the prestigious Cornell University.

He made his name thanks to studies that garnered plenty of media attention, including on pizza, and the appetites of children.

His troubles began last year when scientific sleuths discovered anomalies and surprisingly positive results in dozens of his articles.

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In the final case, Gilbert Welch, a professor of public health at Dartmouth College, resigned last week.

The university accused him of plagiarism in an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the most respected American medical journal.

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Oransky told AFP that what has emerged so far is only the tip of the iceberg.

The problem, he said, is that scientists, and supporters of science, have often been unwilling to raise such controversies “because they’re afraid that talking about them will decrease trust in science and that it will aid and abet anti-science forces.”

But silence only encourages bad behavior, he argued. According to Oransky, more transparency will in fact only help the public to better comprehend the scientific process.

Read more at AFP

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