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KC , DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES Public Health Service

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KO RULE B.D. Davis
’ Oe Mah National Institutes of Health
“ Bethesda, Maryland 20892
Building : 16
Room : 207
(301) 496- 2968

 

Feb. 13, 1989

Dear Colleague,

The initially justified criticisms of fraud in science have
become an additional facet of a growing antiscience movement, and
I am writing to enlist your help in combatting this threat. My
interest in taking this initiative arises partly from my
chairmanship of the Public Affairs Advisory Committee of the
Amer. Soc. Biochem. & Mol. Biol., but I am writing as an
individual and not on behalf of the committee.

The hearings held by Representative John Dingell on this issue
were launched on the basis of the assertion that it is causing
substantial waste of taxpayers' money. Walter Stewart and Ned
Feder led the subcommittee to include in their hearing a paper by
David Baltimore and colleagues. However, it soon became
apparent, and has since been confirmed by an outside Committee
set up by the NIH, that there was no deception or other
misconduct; the paper contained some errors, but these did not
invalidate its conclusions.

Ideally this outcome would have halted further public discussion;
it might even have led to an apology for the unfair implications
arising from the initial confusion of error with fraud; and the
issue would become one of judgment about what errors are
Significant enough to ..21. , uablished retraction. Unfortunately,
the term fraud has meanwhile been replaced by the broader term
misconduct, and Dingell's aim has changed. The report of the
Committee on Energy and Commerce at the end of the last
congressional session states: "The Subcommittee has a growing
concern about the conditions necessary to ensure the preeminence
of American science over the coming decades. It is especially
concerned about factors which may damage the creativity of
American science. One factor is the growing problem of misconduct
in science...."

Scientists have even-more interest than legislators in
discouraging fraud, and in promoting science; but discussion of
the issue in broad perspective has been conspicuously lacking.
Aware of the threat of Congressional censure, the report of the
external committee appointed by the NIH, and the response of the
NIH administration, focused entirely on identifying errors in the
Baltimore paper, however small, and on ensuring their public
correction. Hence, while the authors were absolved of misconduct
' in their publication, they were severely criticized for having
published too limited a retraction, and they would apparently now
be guilty of misconduct if they did not publish correction of
even trivial clerical errors.

Clearly, the precedent set by these responses can have serious
damaging effects: on the pattern of research and of publication,
on the recruitment of young scientists, and on public confidence.
It is up to scientists to try to educate the public and
legislators on the crucial distinction between fraud and error,
on the inevitability of error in science, and on the reasons why
most errors are bypassed rather than formally corrected. But in
addition to discussing these issues in general terms, I would
suggest that some concrete evidence of the inevitability of error
might have more impact.

I am therefore inviting you, and a number of other members of the
National Academy of Sciences working in the biomedical sciences,
to write a paragraph on "My biggest error in research." Barbara
Culliton of Science is interested in putting together such a
collection as a major news story. I had considered presenting
this material as an article, but the requirement for formal
review would probably slow it excessively.

In order to be able to include a large number of statements I
would suggest that each be short, but not at the expense of an
interesting explanation of how the error came about. Errors in
findings are probably more instructive than errors of
interpretation. Citation of the publication would probably be
pertinent in some cases.

I hope you will be interested in this effort. If you do prepare
a statement please send it to me at the above address, where I am

at present a Fogarty Scholar; my permanent address is
Microbiology, Harvard Med. School, Boston MA 92115.

Sincerely,

Bernard D. Davis