Lessons from the Pearce affair: handling scientific fraud

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Abstract
Despite a report from the Royal College of Physicians,3 Britain has learnt little about handling fraud since the Darsee affair in the United States first brought the subject into prominence in 1983.4 This is despite a succession of other major scientific frauds in biomedicine.For example, the Office of Research Integrity, a branch of the US Public Health Service set up to investigate fraud, considered 73 cases in 1994.5 One particular abuse has indeed been tackled in Britain. Several general practitioners who engaged in fraud during drug trials have been struck off by the General Medical Council,6 but this has been largely because their frauds emerged through pharmaceutical companies' thorough auditing procedures and because the companies have taken an aggressive approach towards tackling fraud. The same has not applied within academia or the NHS. Until the Pearce …