Column from May/June 2002 issue of ASPB News.

"Mokita": The truth we all know and agree not to talk about. Papua New Guinea

Scenario: During a journal club, a postdoctoral fellow of a senior colleague in your department presents the deduced nucleotide sequence of a protein that was sequenced in another lab. The lab that generated the amino acid sequence has not yet published their results. Your colleague's postdoc has run a BLAST search that revealed interesting relationships to proteins he works on. When asked, the postdoc and your colleague say they did not obtain permission to share this confidential information with others. Given that this senior colleague is on your promotion committee and you are just about to come up for tenure, how do you deal with this case of scientific misconduct?

Trust is arguably the most important pillar of science. In the 1990s, self-correcting mechanisms within the scientific community were found to be inadequate. The case involving David Baltimore was subject to a long public debate, and the ability of scientists to police themselves was widely questioned. Fierce competition for funds not only undermines collegiality, but can engender a slippage in or loss of scientific integrity.

The University of Washington defines scholarly misconduct as

• intentional misrepresentation of credentials
• falsification of data
• plagiarism
• abuse of confidentiality
• deliberate violation of regulations applicable to research. http://www.washington.edu/faculty/facsenate/handbook/04-09-01.html

Both public and private funding sources recently have defined scientific misconduct:

"Fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing of reviewing research, or in reporting research results. . . . Research misconduct does not include honest error or honest differences of opinion."
U.S. Government Funding

Final guidelines for the contentious statement on scientific misconduct in biomedical research by Britain's Wellcome Trust are set to go into effect in the fall of 2002 and are contentious because they extend the boundaries of scientific misconduct. Perhaps most importantly, they are likely to stimulate other funding agencies to follow suit (quote and conclusions from R. Koening, Science 293, 1411-1413).

Running a few sessions on scientific misconduct at the University of Washington and listening to seminars on the topic by the UW administration have made me aware of two things: Scientific misconduct rules are becoming more rigid and institutionalized, and there is a prescribed series of steps that you can and should follow in the case of suspected misconduct.

In the meanwhile, consider the following proactive steps:

• Do not keep, copy, or share grants or manuscripts you review.
• Do credit the source of data or prose taken from the web.
• Become aware of your rights if you were to be accused of misconduct.
• Become aware of your rights as a "whistleblower."

Know your institutional policy so that you can immediately work with your institution, e.g., your ombudsman, if something of concern arises.

Next time: Ethical Mentoring.

Dina Mandoli
University of Washington, Seattle
mandoli@u.washington.edu

Supporting materials can be found HERE.