Research Integrity and Conflicts of Interest: The Case of Unethical Research-Misconduct Charges
From The Embassy of Good Science
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Research Integrity and Conflicts of Interest: The Case of Unethical Research-Misconduct Charges
What is this about?
The case discusses the relevance of better conflict of interests regulations in accepting a research misconduct allegation. An argument is provided that the U.S. research misconduct regulations are flawed in requiring research misconduct assessors/experts/accused, but not accusers, to reveal possible conflicts of interest (COI) that could affect research misconduct allegations.
Rather than using peer-reviewed, scientific-journal literature to try to defend his account of hormesis against Shrader-Frechette’s scientific criticisms, on August 23, 2011 Calabrese instead filed RM charges against ShraderFrechette with her employer, the University of Notre Dame (UND). The UND Research Integrity Policy, like that of virtually all U.S. universities, is mandated by ORI. It requires that “upon receiving an allegation of research misconduct,” the university must “immediately assess the allegation.” Thus UND appointed a faculty committee to assess Calabrese’s allegations.
