Environmental protection body accused of fabricating data
Many of the recent cases of data fabrication discussed in the scientific community appear to be due to the desire of the individual scientist to further their own careers. However, another motivating factor for such behaviour can be organisational pressure - not for research output in general - but for specific findings. This is especially the case for data that can have flow-on effects in the near future for organisations, and where a range of other forces (other than scientific advancement) are in play. An alleged case of this type of fraud is described in this week's Nature News.
"A former US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientist is suing the agency's officials and researchers at the University of Georgia in Athens, alleging that they manufactured and published false data to support the use of potentially harmful sewage sludges as fertilizers. The sludges have been linked to health problems in humans and cattle — and even deaths.The False Claims Act lawsuit brought by microbiologist David Lewis, who says he was forced out of the agency, alleges that EPA officials and University of Georgia researchers fraudulently orchestrated a grant and then fabricated data to ensure that the EPA's 'biosolids' programme would come out smelling pretty. If the charges stick, the scientists and EPA officials could be held personally liable and may be forced to pay back the original grant as well as some US$4.6 million in subsequent grants, plus penalties."
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Comments
is the EPA accused?
It seems to me that we can't speak of "protection body accused" - maybe it's better to say what Nature printed [1] (emphasis mine): "Environmental Protection Agency ***scientists*** accused of fabricating data about health effects of fertilizer."
I think that nobody is saying that the EPA did nothing wrong as organization with a defined purpose - indeed, some individual "scientists and EPA officials could be held personally liable" and even "may be forced to pay back the original grant as well as some US$4.6 million in subsequent grants, plus penalties."
To pay back those grants to the federal government, that is.
Jorge Mata
[1] Jeff Tollefson: Raking through sludge exposes a stink. Environmental Protection Agency scientists accused of fabricating data about health effects of fertilizer. May 14, 2008. http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080514/full/453262a.html
Not directly, but maybe...
You're right, in that it was specifially individuals who have allegedly been involved in this fabrication case rather than the EPA, and that should have been made clear.
However, I wonder whether those scientists would argue (if [a] this actually occurred, and [b] they would admit it) that they were 'encouraged' to do so by the organisation? This is merely speculation, along the more general lines of trying to idenfity various motivations for committing violations of scientific ethics...
Organizational support
Though it does seem to me that what's distinctive here is an effort, at least tacitly supported by an institution (or two), to play fast and loose with data. Normally cases of outright fabrication can be written off as the excesses of individual scientists (who might pressure subordinates to go along, and might be famous enough to give make their employers think twice about calling them out). Normally organizations prefer not to cheat, but to weasel: to give more prominence to critics of results they don't like, the declare that "the jury is still out," etc..
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang