NOT Adam Feuerstein (Parody)

Scientific research misconduct complainants (@schrag_matthew @MicrobiomDigest, @Thatsregrettab1, David Bredt, @geoffrey_pitt, and @adrian_h) and the journalists (@chris_said, @cpiller, @damiangarde, @Dereklowe, @adamfeuerstein, and @pubpeer) that write articles about research misconduct do not understand, do not respect, or ignore the laws that govern or the investigation procedures that journals, Institutions, and ORI are required to perform for as complaints are risen. They also do not comprehend fully, do not respect, or ignore the meaning (in investigation policy and law) of the inflammatory words used in their writings. All of these policies stress confidentiality of the complaint and the accused (look at the Pictures attached). The complainants and journalists willfully ignore and/or disrespect these confidentiality preferences to benefit from personal gains (advertising, reputation, compensation, competitive advantage, or other gains) from publicizing their accusations. Yesterday, @chris_said said Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Berislav Zlokovic, Hoau-Yan Wang, and Sylvain Lesné were “credibly accused of fraud”. This statement is FALSE and currently has 829,000 views and growing on X (Twitter). I think all of the researchers AND institutions defamed publicly should join forces and sue this group of complainants, co-conspirators, journalists, PubPeer and the companies that publish their accusations because they skip fair and thorough investigations to defame them. I am more than happy to help them organize this effort to protect science innovation in the pursuit of cures to disease. LET’S DO IT!!! Contact me and we can help stop this from spiraling worse and worse. I think ALL whistleblower (NIH, DOJ, SEC, and etc) awards should be ZERO if the parties making the complaint go public with their allegations prior to a completed investigation and the complainants evaluated for failing to adhere to the Good Faith provisions of those policies. WB policies need modification to accommodate this. (To be clear, this is not legal advice. I am not an attorney. An attorney would help determine if a defamation case is worth pursuing or justified against one or all of these people and organizations) This post goes in great detail into how the Research Misconduct complaint and investigation process actually works from raised concerns to federal charges to the researcher for crimes like fraud. Fraud is a legal term and a federal crime. The best way I can define it in this context is “willful intent to deceive for personal gain”. The simplest way to understand fraud is someone deceived you by taking money from you. Proving fraud requires actual evidence of willful intent and a clear financial gain that can be proven in court (an email that says “I faked the data in my Alzheimer’s paper so that I could get the licensing agreement from Pfizer and it worked!”). Using the word fraud crosses the line from Research Misconduct to a major crime with jail time as punishment. Using it on a post that gets 1m views would make me want to sue for defamation if I was one of those researchers. You will notice the professional journalists do not use terms like fraud often. It crosses a major line. Read below ALLLLLLL the way to the end as that is not determined till the end of likely a 3-5+ year thorough investigation with hearings and criminal charges, if a settlement is not obtained. My MAJOR complaint against these complainants and journalists is there is a very robust investigative process that ensures a fair and thorough investigation is completed. The journal or institution has confidentiality policies regarding the allegations and the name of the researcher until the proceedings are complete. When they leak or go public with the allegations these investigations are skipped and it destroys careers immediately and unjustifiably. The damage cannot be undone when an investigation eventually vindicates them. A VAST MAJORITY OF COMPLAINTS RESOLVE WITHOUT GUILT OF RESEARCH MISCONDUCT. The complainants, journalists, and @PubPeer need to read the overview below so they understand what they are skipping by publicly shaming researchers and institutions. Formal Research Misconduct Complaint and Investigation Process Nearly all of the complaints about research follow the laws written by ORI for research misconduct or COPE policies for scientific journals. There are institutional punishments (fired, demoted, and etc) from the school, retractions and corrections by journals, or federal jail and fines from ORI/HHS. Complaints of research misconduct come in a few ways to schools that receive HHS money to perform research: 1. Directly to the school/institution employing the researcher 2. Through a journal when they find potential research misconduct OR cannot determine if it occurred. Journals have an thorough evidence based investigation procedure they follow that is quite complex and typically follow guidelines laid out by @C0PE (Committee on Publication Ethic publicationethics.org/) 3. Through HHS, NIH, then to ORI (ori.hhs.gov/about-ori Office for Research Integrity, the independent government entity that oversees research integrity for the $40B+ per year that is spent by HHS) whistleblower complaints or other concerns raise HHS requires that institutions that receive money to have Research Misconduct procedures to manage the complaints received and investigate if necessary (@CUNY Policy 1.24 Research Misconduct is a great example policy.cuny.edu/wp-content/u…). They have to report to ORI annually a summary of Research Misconduct complaints and investigations and attest their procedures accurately reflect the Laws Regarding Research Misconduct (ecfr.gov/current/title-42/ch…) Researcher Disciplinary Process - The institution can use the results of their investigation to take disciplinary action in accordance with the policies at the school and union rules if applicable. The researcher can accept the punishment or request a hearing. ORI Misconduct Proceedings and Administrative Actions - This is where the LAWS come into play. After the Institution completes their inquiry process, they communicate the Research Misconduct Investigation Report to ORI, then ORI determines the actions that they could take with another complex process (§ 93.403 ORI review of research misconduct proceedings and § 93.404 Findings of research misconduct and proposed administrative actions). They can: 1. Close the Case without a finding of research misconduct or Make a finding of research misconduct and proposed administrative actions 2. The findings are summarized in a charge letter to the researcher. A charge means the written notice, as well as any amendments to the notice, that are sent to the respondent stating the findings of research misconduct and any HHS administrative actions. 3. If the respondent disputes the charge letter, they can request a hearing (ecfr.gov/current/title-42/ch…). This is a formal court proceeding at ORI. It is very expensive and time consuming. The result is similar to the prior step of formal charges or a decision that there is no research misconduct. 4. HHS may attempt to settle the case with the researcher to accept the charges or not. Settlement agreements are made public. 5. If there is no settlement, then the HHS a) Provides final notification of Research Misconduct Findings to the respondent, the relevant institution, the complainant, and HHS officials b) Identify publications which require correction or retraction and prepare and send a notice to the relevant journal. c) Publish notice of the research misconduct findings. d)Take any Other Actions Authorized by Law. This is where fraud and other criminal charges come in (i.e. formal accusations and charges of fraud) See how @chris_said skips all the way to the end? —----- Next, I plan to write about The Scientific Misconduct Accusation Scheme and how complainants and their conspirators (@qcmfunds @noMidwestHedgie and others) financially benefit from abuse of these investigative processes. The complainants behind most of these accusations are @schrag_matthew @MicrobiomDigest, @Thatsregrettab1, David Bredt, @geoffrey_pitt and @adrian_h. —------ Organizations that help support science, please reach out to me if you want to help stop the abuse of the scientific investigative processes. @BBRFoundation, @SfNtweets, @Society4Science, @aaas, @hhs_ORI, @HHSGOV Other Useful Links if you want to learn more: grants.nih.gov/policy/resear…