Fraud What to Do About it?

The president of a business working with the defense and intelligence community drew AITSE’s attention to an article that was written for those in business. But, since it gives advice on how to handle fraud, it also has applicability to science, technology and medicine. The article advises us to:

1. Pay attention. That is one of the functions of AITSE: to highlight issues of integrity in science, to enable balanced evaluation of scientific claims and to empower the public to notice scientific bunk.
2. Stem the tide. Through AITSE’s almost daily Facebook updates (photo of the page on the right), we are doing our part in spreading the word about science scams. By “liking” our page, you can both get daily updates and help us spread the word.
3. Set the stage. Here the article encourages employers to let employees know that reports of wrongdoing will be welcomed. In the same way, AITSE is grateful to those of you who send relevant articles our way.
4. Root out the cause. In our case, this is a lack of scientific integrity. That is, students are not doing their own work, teachers are not teaching the whole story, and scientists are not allowed to follow the evidence where it leads.
5. Speed it up. The article says that a fraud episode takes an average of four years to investigate. This sounds a lot like the amount of time that it takes the FDA to sound a warning about medications that have been found to be dangerous. AITSE is doing its part in spreading the word about infractions in integrity in science, thereby doing our part in speeding up the process.
6. Move it. The advice here is to fire the ones who engage in the dishonesty, not the ones who report them! We could ask AITSE Consortium member Dr. Jim Enstrom for more information about that.
7. Gather data. The article encourages employees to watch for the misdeeds of others. Frankly, we all make mistakes, so instead of viewing this as spying, let’s call it teamwork.
8. Dig deep. Firms are encouraged to “go beyond dealing with the fraudster.” In science, this could mean educating employees about the fact that scientific dishonesty ultimately ends up costing the company more than is gained by covering mistakes; in medicine, this will include things like standing up for the patient, even when the insurance company is demanding one spends 10 minutes or less per appointment; in education, this may mean teaching on the importance of integrity in science. AITSE is currently planning a conference where a team of experts will be strategizing on how to better achieve just this.

Good science is based on evaluation of evidence, not political, financial or even religious expediency.