China is getting serious about its massive problem with scientific fraud.
China is getting serious about its massive problem with scientific fraud. This brief story in STAT outlines efforts by the Chinese state to impose rigor and punish scientific misconduct, in a typically draconian fashion.
This month, in the wake of a fake peer review scandal that claimed 107 papers by Chinese scholars, the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology proclaimed a “no tolerance” policy for research misconduct — although it’s not clear what that might look like. According to the Financial Times, the ministry said the mass retractions “seriously harmed the international reputation of our country’s scientific research and the dignity of Chinese scientists at large.”
But a prior court decision in the country threatened the equivalent of the nuclear option. In April courts approved a new policy calling for stiff prison sentences for researchers who fabricate data in studies that lead to drug approvals. If the misconduct ends up harming people, then the punishment on the table even includes the death penalty. The move, as Nature explained, groups clinical trial data fraud with counterfeiting so that “if the approved drug causes health problems, it can result in a 10-year prison term or the death penalty, in the case of severe or fatal consequences.”
It is widely believed --- rightly or wrongly --- that "peer-reviewed" papers from mainland China are not worth the digital ink they're printed with. The poor reputation of Chinese scientific publications has led Chinese researchers to seek nominal Western collaborators whose names are included on papers to convey legitimacy.
However, the real problem with Chinese research is not falsification of data --- which also happens at an alarming rate at Western institutions --- but rather the recycling of previous work under new names and titles. The same data can be published many times with the author list rearranged, and nobody notices.
https://www.statnews.com/2017/06/23/china-death-penalty-research-fraud/
This month, in the wake of a fake peer review scandal that claimed 107 papers by Chinese scholars, the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology proclaimed a “no tolerance” policy for research misconduct — although it’s not clear what that might look like. According to the Financial Times, the ministry said the mass retractions “seriously harmed the international reputation of our country’s scientific research and the dignity of Chinese scientists at large.”
But a prior court decision in the country threatened the equivalent of the nuclear option. In April courts approved a new policy calling for stiff prison sentences for researchers who fabricate data in studies that lead to drug approvals. If the misconduct ends up harming people, then the punishment on the table even includes the death penalty. The move, as Nature explained, groups clinical trial data fraud with counterfeiting so that “if the approved drug causes health problems, it can result in a 10-year prison term or the death penalty, in the case of severe or fatal consequences.”
It is widely believed --- rightly or wrongly --- that "peer-reviewed" papers from mainland China are not worth the digital ink they're printed with. The poor reputation of Chinese scientific publications has led Chinese researchers to seek nominal Western collaborators whose names are included on papers to convey legitimacy.
However, the real problem with Chinese research is not falsification of data --- which also happens at an alarming rate at Western institutions --- but rather the recycling of previous work under new names and titles. The same data can be published many times with the author list rearranged, and nobody notices.
https://www.statnews.com/2017/06/23/china-death-penalty-research-fraud/
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