HHS Panel Issues Proposals For Implementing Misconduct Report

SIDEBARS Implementation Group on Research Integrity and Misconduct Definitions of Misconduct in Science Scientific misconduct is front-page news again. Late last month, Tufts University immunologist Thereza Imanishi-Kari was cleared of misconduct by an appeals panel of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In October 1994, she had been found guilty by the department's Office of Research Integrity (ORI) of fabrication and falsification related to a 1986 paper entitled "Altered re

Written byBilly Goodman
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Scientific misconduct is front-page news again. Late last month, Tufts University immunologist Thereza Imanishi-Kari was cleared of misconduct by an appeals panel of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In October 1994, she had been found guilty by the department's Office of Research Integrity (ORI) of fabrication and falsification related to a 1986 paper entitled "Altered repertoire of endogenous immunoglobulin gene expression in transgenic mice containing a rearranged mu heavy chain gene" (D. Weaver et al., Cell, 45:247-59, 1986). The decade-long saga involved Nobelist David Baltimore of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a coauthor of the disputed article and defender of Imanishi-Kari.

Less visible to most scientists, but with potentially greater impact on their professional lives, is the report of an HHS working group charged with advising Secretary Donna Shalala on how to implement the ...

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