Research misconduct, said an editor’s choice article published in The BMJ in January 2012, “can harm patients, distort the evidence base, misdirect research effort, waste funds, and damage public trust in science.”
The BMJ and its editors have long championed measures to tackle research fraud and misconduct, with a focus on the difficulties of getting it investigated and ensuring that all countries take a consistent approach.
Should research fraud be a crime? Yes, said Zulfiqar A Bhutta in a 2014 head to head debate. He argued that criminal sanctions are necessary to deter growing deliberate research misconduct. Julian Crane countered, however, that sanctions may not have any deterrent effect, and that criminalisation might undermine trust.
How prevalent is research fraud in the UK? More cases have certainly come to light since 1988, when Stephen Lock, then editor of the journal, asked if misconduct in medical research exists in Britain.
At the time Lock recalled just five cases, but he was reminded of another, dating back to 1916, which had resulted in what was possibly the first ever published retraction in a medical journal.
It related to an article in The BMJ about James Shearer’s work. Shearer, a US physician and sergeant in the British Army, had invented a procedure that was supposedly better than x-rays for displaying gunshot wounds. But the work was invented, and a retraction was published the following year.
The links below highlight some of the key articles published more recently in The BMJ on this important topic, including blogs. There are also links to external resources.
Related links:
- Head to head: Should research fraud be a crime?
- Feature: Managing research misconduct: is anyone getting it right?
- Editorial: Research misconduct in the UK
- Feature: Boldt: the great pretender
BMJ blogs
- Liz Wager: Researchers behaving badly
- Liz Wager: Can we immunise Brazilian science against fraud?
- Liz Wager: Do we need to rethink our approaches to research misconduct and research integrity?
- Richard Smith: Should scientific fraud be a criminal offence?
- Richard Smith: Do sexual abuse of children and research misconduct have something in common?