Integrity and misconduct in research : report of the Commission on Research Integrity to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the House Committee on Commerce, the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.

  • United States. Commission on Research Integrity.
Date:
1995
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Integrity and misconduct in research : report of the Commission on Research Integrity to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the House Committee on Commerce, the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Matters Not Included in the Definition 1} In general, crimes reflecting moral turpitude and other torts are not included in research misconduct, which is confined to matters peculiar to research. Nor is there included misuse of grant funds or other financial wrongdoing. Such matters may be pursued by other agencies to the extent that they constitute violations of applicable law and regulations. 24 The offenses defined are not graduated. It remains properly a matter of enforcement policy that, to the extent practicable, sanctions be applied evenly from respondent to respondent based on the extent of misconduct established. 3. No change is indicated in the standard for burden of proof applied by the Departmental Appeals Board, which is that of a preponderance of the evidence. 4. The deviation phrase in the present definition has been or could be criticized on several grounds. These include: (1) it is vague because it refers to norms of conduct that are not in fact established;” (2) it effects an invalid delegation of executive authority to private parties; and (3) as a matter of policy, it does not give scientists notice of the conduct proscribed. The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) also argued before the Commission that such phrase violates Executive Order No. 12866 (September 30, 1993), which requires an agency, as a precondition of any regulation, to identify the problem that the regulation would purport to redress; the Director of ORI testified that the deviation phrase has not proven necessary to the prosecution of any case. The definition of research misconduct has not been reviewed by any federal court, and hence the validity of the foregoing legal objections has not been resolved. With respect to the breadth for which the deviation phrase was designed, the proposed definition is considerably more inclusive than the current. The former includes omissions within misrepresentation, introduces misuse alongside the literal transcription that is plagiarism, adds a new offense of interference, and penalizes recklessness as well as intentional conduct. This breadth and the specificity of the proposed definition obviate need for the deviation phrase. The ability to amend ORI’s regulations protects against the possibility that the proposed definition might later appear to omit mention of some wrongful conduct. The phrase include but are not limited to that precedes the definitions of misappropriation, interference, and misrepresentation invites the Secretary by future regulation to close any gap that may emerge between such offenses and later discerned wrongs. A Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238 (1936), and Schechter Poultry Corp. v. U. S.,295 U.S. 495 (1935). See also Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 150-1 (1963). 13 See Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926), Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451 (1939), and Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352 (1983). 53