Kevlar Vest? Whistleblowers also Need a Good Defense Attorney …

Allegation of scientific misconduct concerning the late 2003 publication of a study in Nature Biotechnology describing the discovery of a bactericidal protein called pheromonicin have taken a rather interesting turn – the lead author of the study in question has filed a libel suit against two of his co-authors, claiming that their whistleblowing has injured his and his univerisity’s reputation.

This case again highlights the dangers that whistleblowers face, which results in underreporting of scientific fraud in the United States and other countries. The current atmosphere of overt and covert retaliation against whistleblowers undoubtedly leads many researchers who suspect scientific misconduct to follow the code of conduct favored by Tony Soprano: “Mind your *(#@$ business and keep your mouth shut”. Particularly when money is involved – the commercial rights to pheromonicin have already been licensed to a Chinese biotech company.

But the pehromonicin case is also interesting is other respects. Consider the issue of authorship of the 2003 article in question. Some of the coauthors claim that they were “listed without their knowledge,” but one cannot help but wonder if they would be clamoring to distance themselves from the paper if it wasn’t under investigation. Even more disturbing, one of the corresponding authors, George Wu of the University of Connecticut Medical Center in Farmington, now says he does not even know whether the data presented in the paper are valid or not. According to Science magazine: “[Wu] helped translate the report into English and suggested ways to ‘beef up the experiments with some controls’ and ‘put this together in a presentable way’.” For this level of involvement Dr. Wu deserves corresponding authorship? He didn’t even review the original data.
- Sean Philpott