Articles on Law, Science, and Engineering

Research Misconduct: Catching the Desperados and Restraining the Zealots

ENDNOTES

1. The review board referred to is an appeals panel which was created in the Department of Health and Human Services in response to sceintists' plea for due process in misconduct investigations. Appeals panel members are appointed for each appeal by the head of the Health and Human Services Departmental Appeals Board from a panel of attorneys that has been in place for many years. On page 10B of the November 8, 1993 Late Edition of the New York Times, Phillip Hilts reports that scientists were also included on each appeals panel.[return to text]
2. Draco was an Athenian lawgiver who drew up a very harsh code of laws in 621 B.C. When asked why so many crimes carried the death penalty, he replied that he would have used a more severe penalty if he could have found one.[return to text]
3. According to a presentation by Arthur L. Singer, Jr. at the Sigma Xi Forum Proceedings on "Ethics, Values, and the Promise of Science" on February 25-6, 1993, a Bryn Mawr College survey of 245 scientific researchers found that 32 percent suspected a peer of falsifying data or plagiarism, and 14 percent suspected an assistant or student of such misconduct. But only half of those suspecting peers took action to investigate the suspicion whereas three-fourths investigated the suspected assistant or student. Students may be less suspect, but when they are, expect to find the remains.[return to text]
4. The original Star Chamber was a court with jurisdiction in cases where the ordinary course of justice was so much obstructed by one party that no other court could function effectively. In the reign of Henry VIII and his successors, the jurisdiction of the court was illegally extended, especially in punishing disobedience to the king's arbitrary proclamations. Eventually, the court became so odious to the nation that it was abolished.[return to text]
5. Dingell, JD: New Eng J Med 320:1610-1615, 1993.[return to text]
6. Baltimore, D et al: New Eng J Med 329:732-734, 1993.[return to text]
7. Swazey, JP, Anderson, MS, Seashore Lewis K: Am Scient 81:542-553, 1993.[return to text]

    

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