Handling self-admissions of fraud
ResourcesHandling self-admissions of fraud
What is this about?
In November 2014, the first author of a decade old paper in our journal and a 15-year-old paper from another journal informed us that he faked the data in two figure panels in the paper in our journal and one figure panel in the paper in the other journal. The main gist of the manipulation was loading unequal amounts or delayed loading of gel lanes.
Self-admission of data falsification is a serious charge that is difficult to disprove, and we felt a challenge to identify evidence to counter or support this type of allegation. As general guidelines, we felt there were three types of evidence that could help resolve the standoff:
(1) compelling original raw data with evidence for or against unequal or delayed gel loading;
(2) verified replication already existing within the published literature; and
(3) as a last resort, a replication study performed by a wholly independent laboratory.
