7 ms·

Is there no liability for the author? There are billions of dollars wasted in drug trials and research that can be tied to this fraud. Surely they can face some

Is there no liability for the author? There are billions of dollars wasted in drug trials and research that can be tied to this fraud. Surely they can face some legal issues due to this?

hansonkd 2y ago
Like all things in life that have risks of fraud, negligence or potential failure, insurance could be the answer. Want to publish in a peer reviewed paper? Well then your institution or you should take out a bond or insurance policy that guarantees your work is accurate. The insurance amount would fluctuate based on how big of impact this study could have. Is it a drug that will be consumed by millions? Big insurance policy. Is it a behavioral study without much risk... small insurance policy. Is a a person in an institution found caught committing fraud, well now then all papers from that institution now have higher premiums. Did you sign off on a peer reviewed paper that was fraud? Well now your premiums are going up also. Insurance costs too high to publish? Well then keep doing research until the underwriters are satisfied that your work isn't fraud and adjust the premiums down. It adds a direct near-term economic incentive to publish honestly and punishes those that abuse the system.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  In other words, you are suggesting more stringent peer review conducted by insurance companies. And because insurance companies are too small to have sufficient in-house expertise on every topic, the reviews will be usually done by external consultants. The costs might be from $10k for simple papers to hundreds of thousands for large complex papers. The insurance model does not really work when the cost of evaluating the risks far outweighs the expected risks.
  - jeremyjh 2y ago
    That is like saying my insurance company has to follow me around for a week while I drive before they can underwrite a policy. If there is money to be made, and money to be lost, the actuaries will find a way. The problem could be, that it may become impossible to publish certain kinds of papers that are very well supported and valuable because no institution can afford the insurance.
    - hansonkd 2y ago
      > that it may become impossible to publish certain kinds of papers that are very well supported and valuable because no institution can afford the insurance. What type of research would that be? Just publish it online without insurance and everyone will treat it as it unverified and uninsured... separate from other research that is. Once the risk of the publishing research has gone down (i.e. reputable peers approve, or the findings were replicated), the cost of the insurance goes down also. if something is so costly to insure, there would be a reason and thus the system works.
      - jeremyjh 2y ago
        If it is possible to advance your career by publishing uninsured research then we've just renamed the problem, although I do like the idea of adding this structure. Eventually there could be so much of it that it would become an accepted norm that your research isn't actually published in a journal until five years after you informally publish it. Other scientists in the field have to be abreast of the latest findings, so now these informal publications are the true journals.
        hansonkd 2y ago
        I see your point, the success of this would have to align with a change in the broader academia to only cite research from insured researchers. The "organic" way this would happen is if there was a shift so that journals with insured research are far more valuable than uninsured research. Or perhaps if companies started suing researchers for negligence and fraud and recuperate costs if they used research that was later proved to be fraud. In the literary world, anyone can publish a book, but a book from o'reilly caries with it a different level of authority and diligence then a self published book or blog post. So the shift would have to be that your career can't advance without publishing a bonded and insured paper.
        jeremyjh 2y ago
        But that is not how research works in Academia. They have to follow the bleeding edge of the field, or they may be doing work of their own that is already irrelevant. They will not wait until a consortium of insurance companies and underwriters have done the actuarial analysis and come up with an underwriting product that the institution has funded (and what is the institution's business model for recovering this cost in a field of pure research, anyway?)
  - hansonkd 2y ago
    > you are suggesting more stringent peer review conducted by insurance companies Absolutely not. Underwriters are smart. They use other variables and methods for determining risk. They don't need to directly recreate and peer review the research themselves.
cj 2y ago
Here’s a deterrent: 1) revoke all of their academic accreditations and degrees 2) put them on a public “do not publish” list permanently banning them from being named on any paper in a journal
- therealdrag0 2y ago
  Ya seems obvious tbh.
abigail95 2y ago
any lawyers know if it's wire fraud to get paid to do academic research and lie about the results?
jeremyjh 2y ago
Not only are there billions of dollars wasted, there are many, many lives wasted. If the billions had gone in a direction that was actually promising, maybe there would be treatments that would have saved millions of person-years of quality lifetime. This person is basically a mass-murderer.
mmooss 2y ago
I was thinking about it: If I come across someone seriously injured, try to help them, and accidentally hurt them, I'm protected (in many places) by Good Samaritan laws. But if a health care professional does the same thing, and does something negligent, then they are usually liable. They are professionals and are held to a different standard. Similarly, that's why lawyers keep writing: this is not legal advice and you are not my client. Perhaps a professional in science should have higher standards. Obviously they shouldn't be sued for being wrong - that would destroy science, disregard the scientific method's means to address inaccuracy, and go against science's nature as the means to develop new knowledge. But intentionally deceiving people perhaps should be illegal and/or create liability: When you publish something, people depend on its fundamental honesty and will act on it.
mike_hearn 2y ago
The US has the Office for Research Integrity which can prosecute scientific fraud cases, but it only does a handful of cases per year. To put the scale of this problem in perspective, the ORI was set up in the 1970s after Congress became concerned at widespread reports of scientific fraud. It clearly didn't work, but hangs around regardless. It's ultimately a culture problem. Until academics have the same level of respect as ordinary corporate employees, you're going to get judges and juries who let them off scott free.
- telotortium 2y ago
  It would improve things a lot if the Office of Research Integrity had the same clout as the SEC.
ls612 2y ago
The line between outright fraud, bad methods correctly implemented, messy data, and implementation bugs is fuzzy. Trying to criminalize anything not very very clearly #1 quickly turns into a case of “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”. You think groupthink in academia is bad just wait until professional disputes lead to jail time for the loser.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  The fact that some areas are gray shouldn't prevent us from demanding legal consequences when the fraud is gross and deliberate, as appears to be the case here.
csaid81 2y ago
He could be prosecuted under current fraud laws, but this hardly ever happens. I wrote a blog post on how to make this easier, including a new criminal statute specifically tailored for scientific fraud. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41672599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41672599
- csaid81 2y ago
  Sorry, here's the correct link https://chris-said.io/2024/06/17/the-case-for-criminalizing-scientific-misconduct/ https://chris-said.io/2024/06/17/the-case-for-criminalizing-...

Is there no liability for the author? There are billions of dollars wasted in drug trials and research that can be tied to this fraud. Surely they can face some legal issues due to this?

hansonkd 2y ago

Like all things in life that have risks of fraud, negligence or potential failure, insurance could be the answer. Want to publish in a peer reviewed paper? Well then your institution or you should take out a bond or insurance policy that guarantees your work is accurate. The insurance amount would fluctuate based on how big of impact this study could have. Is it a drug that will be consumed by millions? Big insurance policy. Is it a behavioral study without much risk... small insurance policy. Is a a person in an institution found caught committing fraud, well now then all papers from that institution now have higher premiums. Did you sign off on a peer reviewed paper that was fraud? Well now your premiums are going up also. Insurance costs too high to publish? Well then keep doing research until the underwriters are satisfied that your work isn't fraud and adjust the premiums down. It adds a direct near-term economic incentive to publish honestly and punishes those that abuse the system.

jltsiren 2y ago
In other words, you are suggesting more stringent peer review conducted by insurance companies. And because insurance companies are too small to have sufficient in-house expertise on every topic, the reviews will be usually done by external consultants. The costs might be from $10k for simple papers to hundreds of thousands for large complex papers. The insurance model does not really work when the cost of evaluating the risks far outweighs the expected risks.
- jeremyjh 2y ago
  That is like saying my insurance company has to follow me around for a week while I drive before they can underwrite a policy. If there is money to be made, and money to be lost, the actuaries will find a way. The problem could be, that it may become impossible to publish certain kinds of papers that are very well supported and valuable because no institution can afford the insurance.
  - hansonkd 2y ago
    > that it may become impossible to publish certain kinds of papers that are very well supported and valuable because no institution can afford the insurance. What type of research would that be? Just publish it online without insurance and everyone will treat it as it unverified and uninsured... separate from other research that is. Once the risk of the publishing research has gone down (i.e. reputable peers approve, or the findings were replicated), the cost of the insurance goes down also. if something is so costly to insure, there would be a reason and thus the system works.
    - jeremyjh 2y ago
      If it is possible to advance your career by publishing uninsured research then we've just renamed the problem, although I do like the idea of adding this structure. Eventually there could be so much of it that it would become an accepted norm that your research isn't actually published in a journal until five years after you informally publish it. Other scientists in the field have to be abreast of the latest findings, so now these informal publications are the true journals.
      - hansonkd 2y ago
        I see your point, the success of this would have to align with a change in the broader academia to only cite research from insured researchers. The "organic" way this would happen is if there was a shift so that journals with insured research are far more valuable than uninsured research. Or perhaps if companies started suing researchers for negligence and fraud and recuperate costs if they used research that was later proved to be fraud. In the literary world, anyone can publish a book, but a book from o'reilly caries with it a different level of authority and diligence then a self published book or blog post. So the shift would have to be that your career can't advance without publishing a bonded and insured paper.
        jeremyjh 2y ago
        But that is not how research works in Academia. They have to follow the bleeding edge of the field, or they may be doing work of their own that is already irrelevant. They will not wait until a consortium of insurance companies and underwriters have done the actuarial analysis and come up with an underwriting product that the institution has funded (and what is the institution's business model for recovering this cost in a field of pure research, anyway?)
- hansonkd 2y ago
  > you are suggesting more stringent peer review conducted by insurance companies Absolutely not. Underwriters are smart. They use other variables and methods for determining risk. They don't need to directly recreate and peer review the research themselves.

cj 2y ago

Here’s a deterrent: 1) revoke all of their academic accreditations and degrees 2) put them on a public “do not publish” list permanently banning them from being named on any paper in a journal

therealdrag0 2y ago
Ya seems obvious tbh.

abigail95 2y ago

any lawyers know if it's wire fraud to get paid to do academic research and lie about the results?

jeremyjh 2y ago

Not only are there billions of dollars wasted, there are many, many lives wasted. If the billions had gone in a direction that was actually promising, maybe there would be treatments that would have saved millions of person-years of quality lifetime. This person is basically a mass-murderer.

mmooss 2y ago

I was thinking about it: If I come across someone seriously injured, try to help them, and accidentally hurt them, I'm protected (in many places) by Good Samaritan laws. But if a health care professional does the same thing, and does something negligent, then they are usually liable. They are professionals and are held to a different standard. Similarly, that's why lawyers keep writing: this is not legal advice and you are not my client. Perhaps a professional in science should have higher standards. Obviously they shouldn't be sued for being wrong - that would destroy science, disregard the scientific method's means to address inaccuracy, and go against science's nature as the means to develop new knowledge. But intentionally deceiving people perhaps should be illegal and/or create liability: When you publish something, people depend on its fundamental honesty and will act on it.

mike_hearn 2y ago

The US has the Office for Research Integrity which can prosecute scientific fraud cases, but it only does a handful of cases per year. To put the scale of this problem in perspective, the ORI was set up in the 1970s after Congress became concerned at widespread reports of scientific fraud. It clearly didn't work, but hangs around regardless. It's ultimately a culture problem. Until academics have the same level of respect as ordinary corporate employees, you're going to get judges and juries who let them off scott free.

telotortium 2y ago
It would improve things a lot if the Office of Research Integrity had the same clout as the SEC.

ls612 2y ago

The line between outright fraud, bad methods correctly implemented, messy data, and implementation bugs is fuzzy. Trying to criminalize anything not very very clearly #1 quickly turns into a case of “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”. You think groupthink in academia is bad just wait until professional disputes lead to jail time for the loser.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
The fact that some areas are gray shouldn't prevent us from demanding legal consequences when the fraud is gross and deliberate, as appears to be the case here.

csaid81 2y ago

He could be prosecuted under current fraud laws, but this hardly ever happens. I wrote a blog post on how to make this easier, including a new criminal statute specifically tailored for scientific fraud. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41672599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41672599

csaid81 2y ago
Sorry, here's the correct link https://chris-said.io/2024/06/17/the-case-for-criminalizing-scientific-misconduct/ https://chris-said.io/2024/06/17/the-case-for-criminalizing-...