HANDS up those who have falsified data. It appears there is vastly more cheating going on in the lab than gets reported.
Sandra Titus of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in Rockville, Maryland, surveyed 2212 scientists at 605 institutions funded by the US Department of Health & Human Services. Nine per cent said they had witnessed misconduct, mainly fabrication of results or plagiarism (Nature, vol 453, p 980). The team calculates that this amounts to 2300 cases of misconduct per year among all DHHS-funded researchers, yet the ORI receives 24 misconduct alerts a year. 鈥淚 think our findings are the tip of the iceberg,鈥� she says.
Titus鈥檚 team says the key to preventing misconduct is to create a 鈥渮ero tolerance鈥� culture both for those who commit misconduct and those who turn a blind eye to it.
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