Q:You've spent the last several years here at NIH dealing with some of the most important policy issues facing American research. I'd like to begin with one that's very much in the news at the moment: misconduct, particularly fraud, in science. What's your estimate about how widespread it really is?
RAUB: I don't think anybody, including me, is in a position to give any kind of verifiable estimate as to how widespread it is. It's my belief that it's extremely infrequent. The few cases we see are certainly not everything but are, I believe, a large part of the fundamental wrongdoing in the scientific community.
I believe the kinds of incidents we've seen lately probably have always occurred. In the past, they either went undetected, or were detected and dealt with in some quiet and summary fashion that didn't generate much publicity and didn't unjustly involve individuals.
There's a difference ...
