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June 18, 2005
Unethical Research Practices
I choose an article from the June 15, 2003 article in the Minnesota Daily titled Study Examines Researchers' Practices
In a survey of 3,200 researchers roughly one-third admitted to engaging in questionable research practices within the last three years. 15.5% of researchers surveyed admitted to changing the design, methodology or results of a study in response to pressure from a funding source. 6% admitted to failing to present data that contradicted one's own previous research, and 0.3% admitted to falsifying or "cooking" research data.
Brian Martinson of HealthPartners Research Foundation believes that the large amount of unethical research practices is due to increased compitetion for funding. He says, "in many ways, researchers are being asked to get more money to support their research while universities are receiving less from the State Legislatures." Martinson also believes that the increased commercialization of scientific research has led to some researchers using unethical practices.
Our group had a good discussion about the article. We were concerned about the implications of the unethical research. Shannon asked about the implications of unethical research in the medical field, and Matt brought-up concearns about unethical research in perscription drugs. Deborah asked the group what we thought could be done to solve the problem, and the group thought that there was nothing that could be done.
I choose this article because I thought it was interesting. Also, because this is a research university, I wondered how many researchers here had used unethical research practices.