Reader Comments

Post a new comment on this article

Lots of data fakers

Posted by Azzy on 13 Apr 2011 at 22:14 GMT

I have been in 4 labs, 2 of which were multi million dollar labs. One PI outright faked my data then tried to blame me. One tried to get me to fake a poster, telling me its just a poster. The 3rd said nothing while post docs and students mentioned they discarded certain patient samples because they knew the patients cells were not good for their assay. The 4th lied to me about coming to the lab and getting great data for a quick 1st author paper. It seems most PIs only care about their own reputation or the next grant. I remember a survey where about 2/3 admitted to doing something they knew wasn't right. I think all grant proposals from the govt should come with a lie detector clause, enforced on a good percent of random people, just like drug testing. Also penalties should include jail time, they are stealing tax money by fraud, not to mention the people who lose their life to bad science, when good science may have saved them.

No competing interests declared.