Profound ethical issues were smoothed over

doi:10.1136/bmj.39344.519201.BE

BMJ 2007;335:629 (29 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.39344.519201.BE

Letters

The Gillberg affair

Profound ethical issues were smoothed over

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The issue at the heart of the Gillberg affair concerns the relationbetween raw data and the representation of those data.¹ Thatissue is central to most recent scandals that have damaged thescientific basis of medicine and the trust of patients. It alsoconcerns the availability of raw data to journals, fellow scientists,consumers, those who claim to police matters of integrity inscience, and even to authors themselves. In short, it concernsthe safety of the entire scientific enterprise.

Gornall's article skirts around every one of the principleswhile making conjectures about the personalities involved.¹

The only fact of the affair that is relevant to a serious discussionof ethics is straightforward. The Gillberg team destroyed rawdata, having faced an accusation of research misconduct pertainingto those data. They destroyed those data despite a court orderthat the data should be made available for scrutiny.

The argument . . . [Full text of this article]

Aubrey Blumsohn, consultant

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield S5 7AU

ablumsohn-3@yahoo.co.uk