Clinical trials: To catch a crook, you might try statistics

Gary R. Cutter; Nature Reviews Neurology 13, 9–10 (2017) doi:10.1038/nrneurol.2016.194 Published online 16 December 2016

To reduce research fraud, we need to understand more deeply why professional researchers and clinicians commit fraud. Certainly, personal interest is a major factor. Review boards thoroughly assess conflicts of interest to protect authors from gaining excess monetary gains via publications, but we have little to protect against advancing one’s personal interests — indeed, we reward it. Promotions, grants and grant renewals all depend on publications. Moreover, researchers might commit fraud for more egotistic reasons than mere survival in their chosen career, such as for money or to get a product on the market, to boost the market value of their start‑up company, or perhaps even to deliberately sabotage competitors.
Making trial and other experimental data publicly available have been suggested as one
strategy to reduce fraud, as any interested individual could search for evidence, thereby making fraud less tempting. However, the consequences of the false positives should be kept in mind: do we wish to impugn even one honest researcher in our attempts to catch dishonest ones?.