Call for body to tackle research fraud
Leading doctors and medical editors are calling for
an independent national body to be set up to tackle the problem of fraudulent
and poor quality biomedical research.
At a one day conference in London organised by the
Committee for Publication Ethics, representatives from the Royal medical
colleges and Department of Health met with medical editors to discuss
how a national body might be set up to police poor quality research.
A clear consensus emerged from the meeting that
any body should be supportive rather than take a heavy-handed approach
to rooting out bogus research.
Dr Richard Smith, editor of the BMJ, said:
“Most people now accept that there is a problem and that we need to do
something about it. But most people also want a light touch organisation.
Slowly we are building a consensus within biomedicine that we need to
do this.” He added that many universities currently lacked mechanisms
to deal with fraud and misconduct, let alone district hospitals or primary
care trusts. But he said something needed to be done. “As editors of journals
we do not have the legitimacy to investigate these cases,” he said.
Professor George Alberti, president of the Royal
College of Physcians, also doubted whether National Health Service bodies
and other institutions had the capacity to police their own research.
But he added that since every primary care trust was now to have a research
and development director “there is at least the beginnings of a structure
to deal with problems there. But it will take a lot of working on.”
Although the group was able to agree on the need
for a national body, questions remain about what the body will look like
and how it will function. And it is not yet clear where the funding will
come from. One proposal from the seminar was for the institution to be
funded from member organisations, which could be PCTs, district hospitals
or even commercial research facilities. There was also talk of some form
of research kite-mark that could be awarded to facilities that were members
of the new body.
The proposals have the backing of the Association
for the British Pharmaceutical Industry, which said it wholeheartedly
supported the move. But the ABPI said it was too early to say whether
or not the pharmaceutical industry might fund such an institute.
— Contributed.
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