The dossier was so unsettling, one neurologist revealed, that he couldn’t sleep after reading it. It contained allegations that an experimental drug meant to curb damage from stroke — and eyed up for regulatory fast-tracking for fulfilling an unmet medical need — might instead have raised the risk of death among patients receiving it.
The dossier, assembled by whistleblowers and obtained by an investigative journalist, was recently submitted to the US National Institutes of Health, which is finalising a $30mn clinical trial into the medicine. The whistleblowers allege that the star neuroscientist driving the research, Berislav Zlokovic from the University of Southern California, pressured colleagues to alter laboratory notebooks and co-authored papers containing doctored data. The university is investigating; Zlokovic is, according to his attorney, co-operating with the inquiry and disputes at least some of the claims.
The facts of this particular case, set out in the journal Science last week, are yet to be established but research is fast becoming a catalogue of mishaps, malfeasance and misconduct. Rooting out mistakes and manipulation should not have to depend on whistleblowers or dedicated amateurs who take personal legal risks for the greater good. Instead, science should apply some of its famed rigour to professionalising the business of fraud detection.