Scientific misconduct - Essay Example

Thesis Violation of Professional scientific research of conduct leads to various penalties that may lead to imprisonment.
Scientific misconduct refers to the violation of set codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behaviour as per the professional scientific research. Some of the misconducts include plagiarism; makeup data and changing collected data. The office of research integrity contains a list of cases in which offenders had administrative action taken on them. In Stephen Lock’s ‘imperfect history’, research misconduct in and other study delinquency medicine dates back to the 1974. Where several doctors claimed to have succeeded in diverse fields, but in the real sense they had faked their experimental results. Since then cases of fraudulent scientific researches piled up. The main issue involves less information on major cases of scientific misconduct, but more information on minor cases. In Europe, countries such as Germany and the Dutch have had high profile cases of scientific misconduct. In the United Kingdom, Malcolm Pearce’s case was the first case of scientific misconduct.
In 1994, the worldwide media covered a story on a successful ectopic pregnancy re-implant. Doctors had tried to do that for centuries without any success. At the time, Malcolm Pearce worked as a higher-ranking tutor in St George’s Hospital Medical School, in London. As a famous ultrasonography practitioner, the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology put him as an assistant editor. The chief editor of the journal, Geoffrey Chamberlain, alongside Malcolm carried out a study based on ectopic pregnancy. The cases involved the birth of a baby after a successful ectopic embryo re-implantation. Malcolm told one of his colleagues that he had successfully re-implanted an embryo. He added Chamberlain’s name in the article; therefore, the document did not go through the standard peer reviewing procedure. The second case involved a trial treatment of recurrent miscarriages in 200 women suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome.
However, after a series of investigations, the hospital found out that Pearce had published two fraudulent papers. A young doctor in the Hospital where Malcolm taught raised questions based on the two papers. A series of investigations followed thereafter, which led to the discovery of the lies. Results of the investigations revealed that the patient who had given birth to the baby did not exist at all. He lost his job for fraudulent scientific research by giving false results about the study. For the second case, evidence showed that Malcolm could not have possibly treated 200 patients suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome since it is not so common. This also featured as a scientific misconduct through giving results of non-existent research.
In the end, Malcolm Pearce lost his job at the Medical Hospital and the General Medical Council struck him off. On the other hand, Chamberlain resigned from his position, which led to the termination of a distinguished career. The rose major concerns about the validity of past researches. The editing committee had to move from traditional amateur reviewing to serious editing in order to reduce such cases (Stephen 1547).
In conclusion, research misconduct poses as a major threat across the globe. The Malcolm Pearce represents many other cases discovered and not yet discovered. Furthermore, most countries lack a coherent response to the problem, which leads to an increase in fraudulent cases. If not handled, the public might lose its trust in medical research. Editors need to seriously look into studies carried out and verify their validity before publishing them.
Work cited
Stephen, Lock. "Lessons from the Pearce affair: handling scientific fraud." British Medical Journal 310.6994 (1995): 1547. Print. Read More