In the article on the misconduct case at the Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC) (B. Goodman, The Scientist, Aug. 18, 1997, page 1), Patricia Harsche, a center official, in commenting on why no conclusion of fraud was made by the FCCC investigating committee, stated that they "have expertise that [Jerome] Freed and [Faith] Fenderson do not have." Actually, the only expertise required to find the falsification at issue was the knowledge of how to use a computer spreadsheet.
The FCCC committee concluded that there were reasonable alternative explanations other than fraud for the changes in the files that they, confirming the work already carried out by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), had also found. But it must be noted that the committee's final report (dated Aug. 31, 1995) does not indicate what these explanations might have been. Their report indicates clearly that they found "cooked" spreadsheets,...
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