Research Misconduct: A Case Study on Dr. Makoto Suzuki

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Table of Contents

The Case
The People Involved and Their Relation to Each Other in the Situation
How the Case was Examined and Resolved
The Appropriateness of the Consequences
References

The Case

Dr. Makoto Suzuki, who worked as a Professor at the Kumamoto University Hospital in Japan involved himself in research misdemeanors in two major research works. The first research was funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) grant number P50 CA070907, whereas the second misconduct was an investigation supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant number U01 CA084971. It was proven that the accused consciously, deliberately, and carelessly fabricated data recounted in six publications. Inaccurate data showing the loading controls of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase as well as methylated and unmethylated polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in reverse transcription-PCR gel panels were included in those publications. The details of the misconduct included the use of similar images in different publications as well as marking the images in different ways and stating that they corresponded to separate trials of human tumor cell lines exposed to varying actions. The subject engineered an image and stated that it denoted a gel with adjacent lanes. The manipulation involved the clipping, intertwining, and pasting reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction products in gel lanes to create single images, which were presented in the papers.

The People Involved and Their Relation to Each Other in the Situation

The people involved in the misconduct were Dr. Suzuki’s work colleagues from the Hamon Center for Therapeutic Oncology Research, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in the United States of America and the Departments of Thoracic Surgery and Basic Pathology in the Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Japan. The defendant was the principal investigator in the published works that involved the other co-authors.

How the Case was Examined and Resolved

Overview of the Ethical issue

The respondent’s offense was falsifying research data. Falsification is defined as the alteration of research resources, equipment, or procedures by modifying, including, or leaving out data or findings thereby leading to an inaccurate representation of the research in the records (Gross, 2016).

Normally Accepted Practices and Their Importance in the Scientific Field

Standard scientific work is required to report accurate and truthful findings that are reproducible by independent scientists (Horner and Minifie, 2011). The work should be a depiction of the researcher’s original work, or in cases of borrowed work, the work should be cited appropriately and with permission from the original author. Before an incident is reported as research misconduct, there should be sufficient evidence to show that the involved people departed significantly from established practices of the research community. There should be adequate substantiation to prove that the misconduct was done deliberately or irresponsibly. Therefore, a response to a claim of research delinquency often involves several stages such as an investigation to evaluate the validity of the allegation and to find out whether the allegation holds or if further scrutiny is justified. The next stage involves a probe to establish a factual record followed by a meticulous examination of the record to dismiss the case or recommend it for research misconduct and other appropriate solutions. The last stage is the verdict phase. During this stage, recommendations are appraised, and suitable remedial actions are determined. The above processes ensure the integrity of research work, accountability of researchers as well as the correct and fair punishment of defiant researchers (Pulverer, 2015).

Resolving the Case

Dr. Suzuki agreed to be part of an agreement for the next three years following the discovery of the misdemeanor in 2014. The agreement involved having his research overseen by various bodies. For example, before submitting for funding any application that involved the input of the defendant to the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS), he was required to avail to ORI (Office of Research Integrity) a detailed plan showing how his duties will be overseen for endorsement. The supervision plan was expected to be developed in a way to guarantee the scientific veracity of accused’s research. In addition, the plaintiff agreed not to take part in any research supported by PHS until a supervision scheme was presented to and passed by ORI. Dr. Suzuki was required to abide by all the stipulations of the supervision plan.

Each organization using the services of the plaintiff was required to provide ORI with documentation to ascertain that the data provided by the subject were founded on real trials or had been obtained legally and that the procedures as well as the accompanying results had been reported truthfully in the submission, manuscript, summary or report.

The third verdict was for the subject to bar himself willingly from working in any consultative role to PHS including any PHS review panel, peer review team, or as a mentor.

The Appropriateness of the Consequences

I believe that the consequences of the misconduct were appropriate for the mistake. The respondent admitted liability for his mistakes by agreeing to have all his future research supervised and approved. The actions prevented the recurrence of the mistake in future work.

However, one issue that was not mentioned was the withdrawal of the plaintiff’s publications. Research mistakes in biosciences may lead to misleading information that may have disastrous effects on the lives of many people. Such studies build knowledge that is aimed at improving the wellbeing of people (Kakuk, 2009). Falsifying data and reporting erroneous findings are likely to mislead other scientists and potentially threaten the lives of other people. Withdrawing the publications with the misleading information would prevent further dissemination of the inaccurate information thus saving the lives of other people (Steen, 2011). Nevertheless, the various publishers and databases that had previously published the contentious papers retracted them though copies of publications are still available online and can be downloaded by the public.

References

Gross, C. Scientific Misconduct. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2016, 67, 693-711.

Horner, J.; Minifie, F. D. Research Ethics III: Publication Practices and Authorship, Conflicts of Interest, and Research Misconduct. J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. 2011, 54, 346-362.

Kakuk, P. The Legacy of the Hwang Case: Research Misconduct in Biosciences. Sci. Eng. Ethics. 2009, 15, 545-562.

Pulverer, B. When Things Go Wrong: Correcting the Scientific Record. EMBO J. 2015, 34, 2483-2485.

Steen, R. G. Retractions in the Medical Literature: How Many Patients are Put at Risk by Flawed Research? J. Med. Ethics, 2011, 37, 688-692.

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