Academic fraud, misuse of research funds and other abuses among Canadian scientists are probably much more common than the public realizes, a new national report concludes.
In the past decade, Canada’s three research funding agencies have investigated 160 allegations of scientific misconduct, and have found that abuses were committed in 38 cases. But those statistics provide an "incomplete picture" of the extent of academic fraud, suggests the report released yesterday by the Council of Canadian Academies.
"Given the limited availability of data, it is difficult to accurately estimate the frequency of research misconduct in Canada and to know whether it is increasing or decreasing," the report says.
"International efforts to understand the prevalence of, and trends in research misconduct, particularly in the fields of biomedical and behavioural sciences, have contradicted the assumption that misconduct within the research community is relatively rare. As a result, there is increasing support in the academic community for renewed effort to ensure research integrity."
The report’s authors did not specifically review the case of senior McGill University professor Barbara Sherwin, who a year ago said she "made an error" when she allowed her name to appear on a scientific article "ghostwritten" by the drug-maker Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.
However, Paul Davenport, president of the panel that produced the report, said in an interview that misrepresentation of authorship is serious misconduct.
"I’m not going to comment on a specific case, but I will say that in our chapter on research integrity, we explicitly say that it is wrong, it is a violation of the principle of honesty and truthfulness, to put your name to a paper that’s been written by somebody else. That should never happen."
McGill announced that it would carry out an internal inquiry into the Sherwin affair. Douglas Sweet, directorof mediarelationsatMcGill, said yesterday that the inquiry has not been completed.
Sherwin said she was never paid for lending her name to the article. That paper endorsed the use of the hormone estrogen in the treatment of memory loss in older patients. Coincidentally, Wyeth is the maker of hormone drugs.
Davenport’s report calls for the creation of a Canadian Council for Research Integrity. The council would not play a disciplinary role but would educate researchers and promote best practices.
The report described a number of research abuses, including fabrication of research data, falsification of results, plagiarism and withholding of information.
The report was made public at the annual Canadian Science Policy Conference, being held this week in Montreal.
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