Why do ethical scientists make unethical decisions?

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

~Isaac Asimov

In December of 2002, the Office of Science and Technology Policy defined research misconduct as "fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism (FFP)--the "high crimes"--in proposing, performing or reviewing research results (OSTP.gov). However, as discussed below some commentators suggest there is a much wider--and grayer--area of misbehaviors and faulty decisions that are not captured in this limited definition. If these troubling practices are allowed to continue unchecked they will eventually erode any attempt to establish a solid foundation of responsible conduct of research.

Martinson, Anderson and de Vries (2005) state that serious misbehavior in research is important for various reasons, not least because it damages the reputation and undermines public support of science. They suggest that, in light of the public's penchant for headline grabbing cases of scientific and medical misconduct, the research community can no longer afford to ignore the ever-widening array of integrity issues.

The question always is: "Why?"

Martinson, Anderson and de Vries (2005) surveyed several thousand early- and mid-career US scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and asked them to report their own behaviors. Although the survey did not attempt to link specific behaviors to specific incidents, the results yielded a range of questionable practices. These results force a closer examination of the "negative aspects of the research environment."

The modern scientist faces intense competition for limited research grants, which can create many scenarios for compromise that extend well beyond FFP (Martinson, Anderson and de Vries, 2005). The survey authors state: "In ongoing analysis, not yet published, we find significant associations between scientific misbehavior and perceptions of inequities in the resource distribution processes in science." These behaviors undermine the scientific process, could lead to "misuse of public monies," and generally foster an environment that lacks integrity (Mitchell, 2005). Lower (2005) is more blunt: "Corporate America provides a research environment that is not particularly conducive to good scientists or good science."

I suggest that there is more to the issue than a simple succumbing to the pressures of "publish or perish" or the demand "show me the money." One needs to consider from where core belief systems come and how they may be affected by outside influences.

Values, beliefs, moral, ethics and integrity are intricately interwoven concepts and are consistently--albeit mistakenly--used synonymously. Benefiel (n.d.) says that values are learned from childhood. These are the beliefs that children absorb from those who raise them and from their immediate surroundings. Benefiel (n.d.) goes further to say that morals are the intrinsic beliefs developed from the value systems of how one "should" behave in any given situation and that ethics are how one actually does behave in the face of difficult situations that test one's moral fiber.

Kidder (2005) talks about moral courage as, simply, the courage to be moral. To be considered moral, he says our moral fiber must adhere to one of five core moral values: honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness and compassion. As one attempts to examine past incidences of scientific misconduct, the inherent breaches of research integrity, and the prevailing conditions that cause ethical scientists to make unethical decisions, one needs to understand these basic or core values, agree on some common definitions, and recognize the influence of outside forces.

Kidder (1995) notes four basic paradigms of ethical decisions: 1) justice versus mercy--fairness, equity and even-handed application of the law often conflict with compassion, empathy and love; 2) short-term versus long-term--difficulties arise when immediate needs or desires run counter to future goals or prospects; 3) individual versus community--this can be restated as us versus them, self versus others or the smaller group versus the larger; and 4) truth versus loyalty--honesty or integrity versus commitment, responsibility or promise-keeping.

Certainly any one of these paradigms, if not several, can be applied when examining the motivation of those who commit unethical scientific acts. In the case of the University of Vermont and researcher Dr. Eric Poehlman, it was determined by federal prosecutors that Dr. Poehlman committed scientific misconduct by falsifying and fabricating research data in numerous federal grant applications and in academic articles from 1992 to 2002. According to a Boston Globe article (Goldberg and Allen, 2005), this was "the worst case of scientific fakery" to come to light in two decades. Colleagues of Dr. Poehlman, a top obesity researcher, speculate that either he buckled to an exaggerated perception of the pressure to publish papers and win grants to keep his laboratory going, or he was just so sure that he knew the right answers that he cut corners to get them.

According to a Boston Globe article (Goldberg and Allen, 2005) one of Dr. Poehlman's lab technicians offered that he could not be sure what Dr. Poehlman was thinking, but that the benefits were clear--the fabricated data made his grant proposals more appealing and his papers more publishable, thus enabling him to be one of the better-funded researchers at the University of Vermont. If, in fact, Dr. Poehlman manipulated the system to maintain his lab, his determination to preserve what he had created overrode the necessity to learn and publish the truth.

Karcher (2004) contends that integrity is choosing ethics above personal benefit. The fact that "everybody does it" or "no one will ever know" is irrelevant. Actions should be based on values rather than personal gain. The question becomes muddled--and perhaps more than slightly rhetorical--if one's value system puts personal gain above all else. Hymes (n.d.) states that people breach or ignore their respective code of ethics for the very base reason of greed. Greed, whether viewed as lusting after financial gain, material goods, knowledge, fame or power can be a major motivating factor for breaking or overlooking ethical boundaries.

I suggest that lusting for scientific fame (e.g., a Nobel Prize) was the motivation in both the 1984 case of Dr. Robert Gallo, famed NIH researcher who claimed to have discovered the AIDS virus, and the more recent case surrounding the death of 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger, who died in a gene therapy experiment led by Dr. James Wilson of the University of Pennsylvania.

In both of these instances the motivation to achieve that-which-had-yet-to-be-done was a driving force for breaking the rules.

Those involved in the thick of the Gallo debacle felt powerless to reverse the course of events. The prevailing political climate of ignorance and denial created a scenario in which many in the US and abroad were forced to watch in horror as the number of AIDS-related deaths began to climb while scientists on both sides battled for scientific superiority. How many died needlessly while patent issues were being fought in the courts?

Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute of Paris, whose lab many now acknowledge discovered the virus, is quoted as saying, "Scientists in the US are forced to produce results, which sometimes warps their sense of ethics" (Caton, 1995). This is consistent with the Martinson, Anderson, and de Vries survey results--that intense competition forces otherwise respectable scientists to act unethically in widely varying degrees.

Lakoff (2002) describes integrity as the virtue of being morally whole. In his view someone with integrity has consistent moral principles; he suggests that it is the overall unity of moral principle that makes someone with integrity strong.

Yet how strong does a young scientist have to be to stand up to and blow the whistle on a world-renowned figure such as Gallo? Or stand up to one's graduate advisor, mentor or lab director in a school setting? The power imbalance can be crushing--and it can destroy a career before it has begun. Is such strength too much to ask when society is unwilling to take such a stand?

Harris (1998) adds the genetics element into the morality mix. She claims that the long-held notion that a child's personality or "character" is shaped or modified by his or her parents is not completely valid. Alternatively she claims there are two far more overpowering influences: one being genetics and the other being the influences experienced outside of the home. She contends that parents do not socialize children, that children socialize children, and therefore outside peer groups have a more powerful influence than parents.

Perhaps an argument can be made here about the influence of adult peer groups as well. If the scientific community as a whole is not willing to take a dramatic stand against breaches of scientific integrity--as illustrated by the dearth of peers in the scientific community willing to testify against Robert Gallo or the US government agency that was supporting the work--then what message is being sent? Is it that we as scientists know what we are doing and it is for a nobler purpose, therefore it is not necessary or warranted to punish those who cross the line in the name of the greater good of furthering science? This might be argued under a Utilitarian approach, doing the best for the greatest number, but certainly not from the perspective of moral rights. How many innocent subjects and patients were trampled in the race to be "first"?