Stealing Into Print: Fraud, Plagiarism and Misconduct in Scientific Publishing

In 1992 the Danish Medical Research Council published proposals for handling scientific misconduct. Denmark—surely not? Yet, Danish science is not immune to fraud, coy though their MRC is in giving specifics. It is to the enormous credit of US research institutions and scientists that they have become so open about these embarrassments. No matter that they had to be forced out of an initial complacency by a US Congress watchdog turned terrier, they got there, and did so ahead of the rest of the world. Even now, I cannot see British parliamentary watchdog committees tackling the misconduct issue in the way that Washington has. One price for this frankness has been the worldwide perception that it is only in the United States that misconduct in all its many forms is a pressing issue. "It is to the enormous credit of US research institutions and scientists that they have become so