implants - international magazine of oral implantology International Edition

I 03implants1_2014 editorial I Howmanyscientists fabricateandfalsify research? Dr Rolf Vollmer _“Thefrequencywithwhichscientistsfabricateandfalsifydata,orcommitotherforms of scientific misconduct is a matter of controversy. Many surveys have asked scientists di- rectly whether they have committed or know of a colleague who [has] committed research misconduct, but their results appeared difficult to compare and synthesize.” “To standardize outcomes, the number of respondents who recalled at least one incident of misconduct was calculated for each question, and the analysis was limited to behaviours thatdistortscientificknowledge:fabrication,falsification,‘cooking’ofdata,etc.Surveyques- tionsonplagiarismandotherformsofprofessionalmisconductwereexcluded.”Twenty-one surveys were included in the systematic review and 18 in the meta-analysis. WhileIamfamiliarwithreportsofscientificmisconduct,Iwasshockedaboutthehighoc- currenceinmedicineandpharmacyreportedinFanelli’smeta-analysisofthesesurveys—the firstofitskind:“Apooledweightedaverageof1.97%(N=7,95%CI:0.86–4.45)ofscientists admittedtohave[having]fabricated,falsifiedormodifieddataorresultsatleastonce—ase- rious form of misconduct by any standard—and up to 33.7% admitted [to] other question- able research practices. In surveys asking about the behaviour of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% (N = 12, 95% CI: 9.91–19.72) for falsification, and up to 72% for other ques- tionableresearchpractices.Meta-regressionshowedthatselfreportssurveys,surveysusing thewords‘falsification’or‘fabrication’,andmailedsurveysyieldedlowerpercentagesofmis- conduct. When these factors were controlled for, misconduct was reported more frequently by medical/pharmacological researchers than others.” Thestudycitedaboveshouldmakeusconsiderallwereadcarefully.Especiallywiththede- velopment of new materials (for bone replacement, for example), we should always critically examinethecurrentresearchanddeterminewhetheronecanactuallytrusttheevidence.For each of us, we need to ensure that our decisions are for the benefit of our patients and that they do not make them test subjects. In this regard, the DGZI (German Association of Dental Implantology) offers you up-to- date training opportunities, such as the recently completely redesigned implantology cur- riculum and the presentations at our annual meetings (our next annual meeting is on 26 and 27 September in Düsseldorf), as well as critical, unbiased, objective information on compa- nies and products. We hope you will enjoy reading our current implantsinternational magazine of oral implantology. Yours faithfully, Dr Rolf Vollmer