One of my favorite examples is found in the OSHA hearings on secondhand smoke, January 5, 1995. R. J. Reynolds funds ETS “outside research” that finds no big whoop on secondhand smoke.

So how outside was this?

RJR’s marketing research firm Bellomy designs the initial questionnaire; through subcontractors they recruit field subjects; they assist with field operations; they make choices of locations and cities; they code subject demographic data.

Why did the outside researcher use Bellomy? “Bellomy Research was suggested to us by the Center” (CIAR).

I think you could conclude that RJR ran the project, got the results it wanted, dressed up as outside research.

From the OSHA hearings:

MR. HOPPER: Okay. So you had Bellomy, who did the market research end of this…

DR. JENKINS: Yes.

MR. HOPPER: …whom you testified, who largely has represented and done work for R.J. Reynolds and the tobacco industry based in Winston-Salem. Correct?

DR. JENKINS: Yes.

MR. HOPPER: And you have R.J. Reynolds, who is doing the analysis on this. You have CIAR who is providing the grant, the contract, with a Board of tobacco companies, and Mr. Guerin on their Advisory Board.

I just have one question for you: Did it ever occur to you at any point that it might possibly affect the outcome of this study when it has that much involvement by the tobacco industry, who has a financial stake in the outcome of these proceedings?

The full testimony is at:

http://www.tobacco.org/Documents/osha/950105osha.html

Another nuggest from RJR’s outside “researcher”:

MR. HOPPER: Well, now, you’re a tobacco chemist, and we’re talking about ETS and you’re very knowledgeable about nicotine. Do you believe nicotine’s addictive?

DR. JENKINS: I do not have the… I don’t have the professional expertise to comment.

DR. OGDEN: If they said they were the authors, yes

JUDGE KESSLER: Isn’t that what they mean when they are listed as author??
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I’m not sure a proper understanding of what constitutes appropriate scientific authorship has come out here. Just to clarify:

When it comes to writing scientific papers, its not at all uncommon for persons who have contributed *ZERO* to the actual writing of a text to be listed as authors. In fact, this is routine practice in many fields, particularly in medicine where important publications routinely list a dozen authors.

The requirement is that the person listed as an author made a substantial contribution to the work described in the paper, not that they are the one who actually sat down at the keyboard and wrote the text. While there are scientists who like to write, there are also plenty of good senior scientists who organize projects, see that they get carried out, and then have other people (grad students, or even professional technical writers) actually write the words. In some cases, professional technical writers doing the actual writing don’t even get listed as authors, since they contributed nothing to the underlying research effort. (These people will generally get acknowledgements in the paper).

Now, if the lead scientist, or a major contributor, were to claim that they were an author of the paper in question even though they didnt write any of the words that would NOT be fraud. Nor should it be considered such. I’d hazard a guess that most of the expert witnesses on both sides of this case are listed as authors of papers they didn’t actually write themselves. That’s what happens when you have a narrow technical expertise and work as a collaborator.

I don’t know what the specifics of the paper in question were. If Dr. Oldaker performed research, personally wrote a complete paper describing the results, and handed it off to two third parties, who them published it under their name without making any other contribution to the work, that’s disgraceful. It doesn’t necessarily invalidate the contents of the paper itself as fraudulent, but it certainly calls into serious question the motivations of the participants.