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This article sort of just glosses over any reasons why existing laws aren't enough. It states that existing scientific fraud is rarely prosecuted (e.g. under fr

This article sort of just glosses over any reasons why existing laws aren't enough. It states that existing scientific fraud is rarely prosecuted (e.g. under fraud statutes), so it seems to me the right course of action should be to prosecute it! In the US at least, it's nearly impossible to commit this kind of malfeasance without committing federal wire fraud - faked research would nearly always be part of a grant application, at least eventually, for example. Plus, I'm surprised some enterprising lawyers haven't at least tried some massive class action lawsuits. The actual researcher may not have much to go after, but surely their institutions would. If you can get huge class action payouts for the dubious connection of talc in baby powder to cancer, why can't you get a payout here where (a) the malfeasance was intentional from the get go and (b) the harms are unambiguously clear from follow-up meta-analysis studies. I guess I would like to understand if there is some fundamental reason that existing statutes aren't enough before adding laws.

reillys 2y ago
IANAL... The reason you can get a huge settlement in the talc case but not in this case is because people are purchasing the talc and so it is a product liability issue. In the research case people are basing their care and procedures off another person's research. There is no direct payment from the person receiving the care to the researcher and so it is difficult to draw a direct line from Person A says X to Person B gets injured.
jltsiren 2y ago
I think it rarely prosecuted because prosecuting is risky and expensive. You have a complex technical issue few people truly understand, you are probably not 100% sure there was actual fraud, and there is always a real risk that the court makes the wrong decision. And unless the situation was completely clear, you know that the prosecution will discourage honest researchers from studying topics that could be controversial or have a significant real-world impact. As for class action lawsuits, the researcher who published the fraudulent result is the wrong target. The responsible engineer is not the person who designed the product but the person who approved the design, and the responsible scientist is not the person who published the result but the person who made decisions based on it.

reillys 2y ago

IANAL... The reason you can get a huge settlement in the talc case but not in this case is because people are purchasing the talc and so it is a product liability issue. In the research case people are basing their care and procedures off another person's research. There is no direct payment from the person receiving the care to the researcher and so it is difficult to draw a direct line from Person A says X to Person B gets injured.

jltsiren 2y ago

I think it rarely prosecuted because prosecuting is risky and expensive. You have a complex technical issue few people truly understand, you are probably not 100% sure there was actual fraud, and there is always a real risk that the court makes the wrong decision. And unless the situation was completely clear, you know that the prosecution will discourage honest researchers from studying topics that could be controversial or have a significant real-world impact. As for class action lawsuits, the researcher who published the fraudulent result is the wrong target. The responsible engineer is not the person who designed the product but the person who approved the design, and the responsible scientist is not the person who published the result but the person who made decisions based on it.