Science Projects For Children's Minds

The first hint of the size of the scientific fraud problem emerged when officials of the government's two chief agencies for funding non-military research for Children Science Projects disclosed that 87 cases are under review or recently have been resolved. The new Office of Scientific Integrity at the National Institutes of Health is investigating 77 cases of alleged fraud or misconduct, NIH deputy director William Raub said.

The National Science Foundation, the other agency, has investigated eight cases of fraud regarding Children Science Projects since it began operating under new procedures two years ago and has two cases still under study, said Robert M. Andersen, NSF's deputy general counsel.

Neither Raub nor Andersen would identify the scientists under investigation nor characterize the cases that have been concluded. Although about a dozen cases of science fraud have made headlines in the last decade, leaders of the scientific community frequently have characterized them as rare events committed by out-of-control scientists who always get caught.

With more than eight meetings on the subject by scientific organizations in the last year and three congressional hearings in the last two months, unprecedented attention is being paid to the conduct of science and how well government money is being spent on basic research.

Governmental and private scientific institutions have begun to respond to the pressure. The activities of the NIH Office of Scientific Integrity, which has been operating since April 10, and the Office of Scientific Integrity Review in the Department of Health and Human Services, to which an acting director was appointed May 23, were described yesterday at a hearing by the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology's investigations subcommittee.

NIH's office "is using a very low threshold," to bring questionable research under scrutiny, Raub said. The problems range from failures to comply with administrative procedures to fabrication of data. The NIH office hopes to resolve the current cases in the next year.

NSF's Andersen said at least two of the eight cases already investigated "involved data fabrication or falsification." A report characterizing the eight cases in general -- but not naming the scientists or institutions involved -- will be made public in the near future.

Drummond Rennie, associate editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, told the subcommittee that before the government sets up a science police force, it should have a better idea of how much fraud is committed.