A researcher whose work was supported by the Federal government, among others, has agreed to retract two of her papers published in 2009 in the pages of Environmental Health Perspectives and the Journal of Biological Chemistry, respectively.
Dr. Mona Thiruchelvam, a former assistant professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey (UMDNJ), committed research misconduct by fabricating data, according to an investigation by the university and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity (ORI). The ORI, which announced its findings on Thursday (June 28), determined that she falsified cell count data supporting her thesis that certain now-rarely-used pesticides might have increased the risk of Parkinson s Disease among exposed workers.
All too often, says Dr. Ross, it seems that researchers in fields focused on finding toxic effects of chemicals including pesticides are willing to play fast and loose with the scientific method in order to support their tenuous theories. This case, of course, is unusually appalling, given the exposure of the misconduct. And unfortunately, I d bet that this researcher s fraudulent studies will continue to be cited long into the future as supportive evidence for a link between pesticides and various diseases, despite the revelations of falsified data.
ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava notes, too, that this kind of misconduct is doubly perturbing because of the wasted money and time other researchers will have spent trying to duplicate or further expand upon the fraudulent data.
