Jack Cohen – Fraud in Science II & III
Fraud in Science II
There were several cases of fraud in science that received coverage in the US media
- The Darsee case – painting mice: John Darsee was a very successful cardiologist at Harvard. In 1981 some colleagues who were suspicious of his incredible output (5 major papers in 1.25 yrs) went to the lab director and complained. An internal investigation found that he had been altering results and he was suspended. An NIH investigation showed that most of his supposed data was fraudulent and he was fired. In experiments on mice Darsee had claimed genetic changes, but he had actually painted black spots on the mice skin. This was the first case where an institution was required to return funds to a granting agency.
- The Baltimore Case: David Baltimore was a Nobel Laureate and Head of Rockefeller University and his co-worker was Dr. Imanishi-Kari. It was alleged by a former student that a paper by them in 1986 had fraudulent data. There was a Congressional hearing by Rep. Dingell. Because of this the FBI was involved and they found alterations of data in Imanishi-Kari’s notebooks. The finding was that some data had been falsified and the paper was subsequently retracted. But, following further investigation the case was dropped.
- The Marc Strauss case: Marc Strauss was a very successful oncologist working at the Boston Univ. School of Medicine. Several of his nurses and co-workers came forward and alleged that he had falsified results, including patient records. Since the work was supported by the NCI this was a federal offense. Although proclaiming his innocence, Strauss resigned in 1978 and continued to carry out oncology research elsewhere. In 1982 he filed a m$33 lawsuit against 5 of his former co-workers. Fraud was never proven on either side and eventually Strauss was reinstated
- The Spector/Racker Case: Efraim Racker was a leading expert in the area of energy metabolism and signal transduction at Cornell University. Mark Spector was his wunderkind, who had just obtained his PhD in 1981. He claimed to have obtained data to prove a series of cascade reactions that were supposed to cause cancer. Doubts were raised by some and Racker himself tried to reproduce Spector’s results, without success. Under pressure Spector withdrew his Thesis and his results while maintaining his innocence.
- The Cold Fusion Case: In 1989, two scientists Martin Fleischman and Stanley Pons claimed that they had produced “excess energy” from an apparatus containing palladium and hydrogen at room temperature. They attributed this to a nuclear reaction and claimed this discovery of cold fusion could revolutionize energy production in the world. After an initial media frenzy, others tried to reproduce their results and could not. This is now viewed by many as an example of a fraudulent claim in science.
Fraud in Science III
The one case that looms large in the issue of fraud in science was that of the controversy over the discovery of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the causative agent of AIDS. In 1984, the two co-discoverers of HIV, Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Inst., Paris, and Robert Gallo of the US Natl. Cancer Inst. (NCI), published papers side-by-side on their work. But, subsequently a controversy erupted between them, because the HIV genome was found to be very variable, but the two sequences published by them were almost identical. Montagnier accused Gallo of stealing a sample of his material.
A reporter for the Chicago newspaper wrote an article on the subject and Congressman John Dingell, who was Chairman of the Science Sub-Comm. of Congress, read the article and decided to hold hearings on the subject. As a result there were a series of detailed investigations of Gallo’s lab by the FBI, that took 5 years! It was discovered that Gallo had isolated his specimen of HIV from a sample of another virus given to him by Montagnier. Although his scientific credentials remained intact, and the US and French Governments agreed to divide the royalties on their patents on HIV, nevertheless priority for the discovery of HIV was given to Montagnier, and he alone won the Nobel Prize in 2008. However, several of Gallo’s co-workers were also supposedly found to have committed fraud and misappropriated funds.
Mika Popovic was a leading researcher in Bob Gallo’s Lab. He was found guilty by the Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI) at NIH of scientific fraud related to a paper published in 1984. On that basis he was fired from the NIH and lost his pension. But, he maintained that he was never given any right of appeal or due process and he sued NIH. In response the Dept of Health and Human Services established an independent panel of lawyers to investigate the procedures used by OSI and they concluded it was totally faulty, relying on hearsay and not allowing any response by the accused. As a result, Popovic was exonerated and the case against Gallo was dropped after 5 years of investigation.
Another controversial area is climate change. Climate change and global warming has been generally accepted as scientifically based. But, there are many cases of falsification of data and analysis in order to “prove” the urgency of the case. The evidence for the shrinkage of many glaciers in the Alps was shown to be falsified. The UN inter-governmental panel on climate change claimed that the Himalayan glaciers were receding, but this turned out to be fraudulent. Temp warming date from NOAA has been found to have been serially readjusted. Such fraud does not disprove global warming, but certainly raises doubts.
A study by a University Committee tasked with estimating the amount of fraud in science came to the conclusion in 2017 that ca. 3% of published papers are unreliable. Science itself is not at fault – because of the need to verify and check scientific claims the scientific method is self-regulating. But, since science is a human endeavor that can give fame and fortune there is always a human failing to fake results.
