Meeting On Science Conduct Seen As A Noble Attempt That Fell Short

Meeting On Science Conduct Seen As A Noble Attempt That Fell Short Author: Franklin Hoke, pp.1 Attendees praise conveners' good intentions but say the gathering lacked substance Participants are praising last month's "Convocation on Scientific Conduct" and the meeting's hosts, National Academy of Sciences (NAS) president Bruce Alberts and Institute of Medicine (IOM) head Kenneth Shine, for placing research ethics firmly on their prestigious organizations' agendas. Some meeting critics, however, say that the conference failed to sufficiently explore specific cases or to adequately define different types of scientific misconduct. And many of the attendees note with some dismay that active research scientists were largely absent from among the approximately 250 people present in the academy's Washington, D.C., auditorium. The meeting instead was dominated by those who are responsible for preventing or responding to scientific misconduct--university administrators, government officials, and journal editors. Sessions at the meeting, held June 6 and 7, discussed ethics courses being offered at several universities and the roles of professional societies, government, and journals in addressing scientific misconduct. A 28-participant roundtable discussion, "Handling Allegations of Misconduct and Questionable Practices," concluded the meeting. By design, the meeting was a wide-ranging conversation on the relevant issues more than an attempt to arrive at concrete suggestions for action. Several reasons are being offered for the sparse representation of researchers. Some participants express the belief that scientists continue to resist the idea that the ethical aspects of their work warrant their serious attention. This is despite the rising clamor in Congress and among the public over high-profile breaches of proper conduct in federally financed research, such as recently revealed data irregularities in University of Pittsburgh breast cancer studies. SENDING MIXED MESSAGES During a 28-participant roundtable discussion at last month's "Convocation on Scientific Conduct," held at the headquarters of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington, D.C., some tough questions were raised. Kenneth Ryan, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and chairman of the Commission on Research Integrity for the Office of Research Integrity in the Public Health Service, posed one to the convocation's hosts. Directing his query to Institute of Medicine (IOM) president Kenneth Shine and NAS president Bruce M. Alberts, IOM member Ryan asked, "How have the IOM and the NAS dealt with members of their societies who have been convicted of scientific fraud?" Shine said he knew of no historical cases to which he might refer and so, without data, had "no way of responding." Alberts, however, acknowledged, "We do not have any formal way of getting members out of the institution." NAS member Felix E. Browder, a professor of mathematics and former research administrator at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., said that difficulties involving a foreign associate had recently brought this issue to the NAS governing council's attention. In mid-1992, the council struggled over how to respond to allegations of anti-Semitism against Russian foreign associate Igor R. Shafarevich. Lacking a mechanism for stronger action, the NAS council sent a letter to Shafarevich asking him "to consider whether it is appropriate for you to maintain your membership," a suggestion he rejected. Subsequently, some NAS members questioned the action, saying the council had moved too hastily in involving the academy with the case (B. Spector, The Scientist, Sept. 28, 1992, page 1). "We have no provision for expulsion of members, none whatever," said Browder. "And, as far as most of us are concerned, we're not particularly anxious to have such a provision, because the amount of trouble it would cost us would be far more than the profit." "That is, perhaps, a measure of how seriously we take [scientific misconduct]," Ryan responded. --F.H. "There's a lot of avoidance and denial among scientists," says C.K. Gunsalus, associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. "But if the [scientific] community doesn't confront scientific misconduct itself, other people are going to, because the standards and concepts of accountability in the external community have changed. And the question is not whether there is going to be more regulation, but what its source will be. "So, it's a real act of courage and leadership for Alberts and Shine to say, `This is our problem, and we need to grapple with it.' " Some NAS members suggest, however, that the fact that many scientists shunned the meeting may stem from the academy's own record of avoidance in dealing with scientific- misconduct issues, which might have led scientists interested in ethics to expect that the gathering would be an unproductive one. "I've not much confidence in the leadership of the academy on these questions," says Stephen Smale, a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, who did not attend last month's convocation. Smale was asked by an NAS committee to review prepublication drafts of its scientific misconduct report Responsible Science (Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 1992). In his critique, Smale cited the report's failure to use specific cases as examples--and to name names--as weakening its impact. "They were just too afraid to criticize by name any of their colleagues in that report," Smale says. He adds that the "timidity" exhibited by the academy's leaders made it likely that scientists expected the meeting to be ineffective in confronting the issues. Examples are essential to the process of understanding scientific misconduct, Smale says. In a sense, the high- profile cases involving National Institutes of Health researcher Robert Gallo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor David Baltimore, and others are responsible for the current level of interest in scientific misconduct, he says. Using them, therefore, to explore the issues is crucial, he says. Convocation organizers acknowledge that attendance at the meeting by scientists was disappointing, and spoke of the pressing need for "consciousness raising" among researchers. "People have to become more convinced that we are at a branch point in science, and that either we will [address scientific misconduct] or it will be done by external agencies," said convocation steering committee chairman Gerald Fischbach at the meeting. Fischbach is a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "The more people involved and the fewer people who are skeptical, the easier and more successful the process will be," he said. "It was difficult to get many scientists who were queried to come to this convocation, because they don't really believe that they should be invested in this process--[they believe] their time is too precious." The meeting touched on a wide array of issues pertaining to proper scientific conduct as well as misconduct. One topic was how best to structure educational responses to a 1989 NIH requirement that institutions receiving training grants offer ethical instruction. The essential role of mentoring in the ethical training of young scientists was a recurring theme. Also discussed at some length was how to assess legitimate vs. spurious authorship credit in various disciplines and circumstances. Fictional scenarios involving possible misconduct were presented for exploration by panel members. While some critics have said that the sessions would have been more purposeful had they used actual cases, several meeting participants say that engaging scientists in a meaningful dialogue about ethical issues may require a more oblique approach. "There were certainly people there who wanted this to be a landmark, bombshell event that would serve as a wake-up call to the entire scientific community, where there was a lot of finger-pointing and fireworks," says Stephanie J. Bird, special assistant to the associate provost at MIT. "But that wasn't the kind of event that the academy planned. And I'm not sure that it would have served a useful purpose. There's a constant tension between alienating the people you want to be paying attention, so that they just tune you out altogether, and getting them to hear what you're saying." "The most telling criticism of the convocation was that it surfed on a lot of issues and didn't really take any one issue by the horns," says Eric Fischer, the NAS official who served as project director for the convocation. "And that's legitimate. It was not, however, what the goal of the meeting was. The goal of the meeting was, in fact, to do an overview and to provide a forum for communication among the various sectors that are involved in these issues. "We had a lot of deliberation ahead of time about whether we should try to get some closure at this meeting. The decision was consciously made not to do so, one of the reasons being that it was not the kind of venue that we felt was conducive to having a meaningful closure." Convocation attendees express the hope that more substantive, future discussion of issues related to scientific misconduct will follow from the meeting. Fischer says that follow-up activities are planned to help realize this goal. These activities will include publishing a summary of the convocation, making available an edited video tape of the main round-table discussion, and preparing a curricula source book to help faculty planning ethics courses. Defining different categories of scientific misconduct proved a vexing problem for convocation participants. That fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism--the heart of officially sanctioned misconduct definitions--are unethical, damaging to science, and legitimate grounds for action by the government agencies that fund research was accepted by the majority of convocation attendees. The NIH and NSF definitions, however, also include references to "other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted" and "other serious deviation from accepted practices," respectively. At the meeting, NIH director Harold Varmus described fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism as "true misconduct" in the eyes of NIH, giving little credence to other forms of scientific misconduct. "The definition under which we operate for misconduct in science does include practices that deviate from the norm," he admitted, "but I frankly don't know what some of those things mean." Responsible Science rejects the "other serious deviation" phrasing as ambiguous and as potentially inviting overexpansive interpretations. Rather, the report refers to "questionable research practices," saying that such practices "violate the traditional values of the research enterprise." Acts under these definitions might include, for example, certain kinds of data mismanagement, inappropriately assigned or withheld authorship credit, and misrepresen- tation of speculations concerning research performed as fact. A number of speakers expressed the view that excessive proscription--especially in the form of government regulation--in these less clear areas of conduct could do more harm than good to science. "There's a thin line between defining questionable practices and being rigid about questionable practices," Fischbach said. "Everyone who practices science and has lived science in the last generation knows that it is easy to curb creativity and to put shackles on individuals who are trying to break new ground." Some speakers made the point that, because there is little disagreement over the core terms of misconduct, it is in the vaguely defined areas of "other deviation from accepted practice" and "questionable practices" that science is most vulnerable. "Misconduct is a done deed, a settled issue," Fischbach said in closing remarks at the meeting, referring to the fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism definitions. "Where we can have the most impact is on this area of questionable practices. That's going to be the great challenge for the future. "Guidelines about questionable practices, coming from this organization, could be enormously influential around the nation, and perhaps around the world."

Meeting On Science Conduct Seen As A Noble Attempt That Fell Short

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