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investigation," DaSilva said. But if a collaborating institution is not working with the suspect data, that institution doesn't need to know, he added. And if a paper based on research under question is submitted to a journal, the "university should ask the editor to put a hold on the article" without revealing details of the case, he added.
An accused researcher who acquires a new position at another university before an investigation is complete poses special problems. First, OPHS regulations require that the investigation be carried to completion, but this is difficult when the researcher has left the institution. Also, only after ORI has made a formal finding of misconduct can the information about that person be passed on to the new employer, DaSilva said.
Obtaining the most original and primary form of evidence available is crucial to a good investigation, Barbara R. Williams, chief of the investigations branch at ORI's Division of Research Integrity, told the symposium. "Great care should be taken to get high-quality evidence," in part because "protection of the evidence is very important to the protection of the accused," she said. "The creation of new evidence to cover up [misconduct] is what we see the most of," and this constitutes "really severe misconduct," she added. If evidence is not secured, she warned, other parties are more likely to become targets of counterallegations.
Evidence used to prove a case consists of all records and materials offered by the accused, as well as additional laboratory records regarding the questioned project, Williams said. Evidence can consist of lab notebooks, printouts, gels, reagent samples, biological materials, computer records, manuscripts, and records of communications.
More and more, Williams continued, important evidence exists only on computers, not in notebooks or other written records. "You may need to get someone very knowledgeable to go in and secure the hard drive," she said. Networked computers where many people have access to the data pose a special problem. If tampering with computer data or erasures are suspected, the university may need to hire an expert to investigate, Williams said.
In some cases, the only data for the questioned research are on a computer at the researcher's home. Then, Williams said, the investigator may need to seize the home computer.
One problem is that, although institutions usually have legal rights to data,
many researchers believe they have sole ownership. In these cases, a university administrator may find it necessary to step in and say, "We need to secure everything relevant to this questioned project," Williams said. Expert advice may be required here. "If faculty try to secure data, problems may arise because most faculty are not trained in due process," Marcus H. Christ, chief of ORI's research integrity branch, told the symposium.
Inevitably, securing evidence interferes with maintaining confidentiality. "You can't secure evidence and maintain complete confidentiality," Christ said. "But do it as much as possible."
Securing what appears to be fraudulent data is not enough to prove a case. An investigating committee also needs to discover some motive for the error. "It needs to look at why this person would want to falsify," Christ said. In the final analysis, the burden is on ORI to prove the error was not an honest one, he explained.
To prevent misconduct from happening, institutional policies should also "foster an environment that discourages misconduct," Rhoades said. One way to do this is to give presentations on the responsible conduct of research, especially to graduate students. Another is to instruct researchers on proper methods of recording scientific data and to establish policies on data retention and data ownership. Currendy, there is wide variation in the way research records are kept and in the length of time they are kept. Some researchers record litde of their data, and some throw it away a few months after their research is published, Christ said. Mentoring is also a good way of fostering sound research practices, he explained.
In part because of deficient policies, in part perhaps because of difficulties inherent in misconduct investigations, both exonerated researchers and whistle-blowers have usually suffered personally and professionally after an investigation.
The Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, N.C., did a survey last year and found that 60% of exonerated scientists suffered one or more negative consequences. Of these, 17% reported severe consequences—loss of position, promotions, or salary increase—and 42% reported less severe consequences—threatened lawsuits, additional allegations, ostracism, reduction in research or staff support. In most cases, these negative actions continued even after the conclusion of the investigation. An OPHS regulation requires universities to try to restore the reputation of exonerated scientists, but only 25% of
the exonerated scientists were satisfied with the efforts made by their institution to restore their reputations.
Whistle-blowers met a similar fate. Together, 69% of whistle-blowers suffered negative consequences, and for 25% of the whistle-blowers, the consequences were severe.
So research institutions today find themselves in a dilemma. If they allow misconduct to go unchecked, this can lead to a loss of morale among scientists and a loss of OPHS funding. But investigations of misconduct can be very costly to the institution, can lead to expensive lawsuits, and can harm the reputations of everyone involved.^
EPA paperwork reduction illusory In its latest progress report on reinvention activities, the Environmental Protection Agency says that over the past two years it has substantially reduced the time U.S. businesses spend completing the paperwork associated with its environmental regulations. However, the report doesn't mention that this reduction has been almost totally offset by new information collection demands, and, as far as paperwork reduction is concerned, EPA is on a treadmill—running hard just to keep from falling behind.
EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner proudly stated when releasing the report that "EPA [has] reduced the time needed to comply with environmental rules by an amazing 16 million hours—the equivalent of 400,000 workweeks for American business." And, furthermore, Browner said the agency "will soon eliminate another 8 million hours."
A little more than two years ago, EPA pledged to reduce by 25% its Jan. 1, 1995, annual paperwork burden-hour total of 81 million hours by the end of 1996. But since making that promise, the agency has increased the baseline from 81 million hours per year to 107.7 million hours. Even subtracting the 16 million hours the agency says it has saved, the total burden has increased.
J. Charles Fox, associate administrator in EPA's Office of Reinvention, agrees that the baseline has changed as new statutory reporting requirements have come on-line, and says the total burden has not been reduced by 25%. He says it has, in fact, remained flat or has risen a bit over the past two years.
JUNE 23, 1997 C&EN 25
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For example, the agency claims that about 1 million hours annually has been cut as a result of a new two-page certification form and similar improvements to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) requirements. However, according to a General Accounting Office report, EPA's claims of TRI paperwork reduction have not been offset by the additional paperwork burden—about 800,000 hours—incurred by those choosing the new options.
Fox points out that the biggest increase in regulatory burden hours EPA has to deal with is related to new lead-based paint reporting, a burden that will fall largely on people in the real estate business. "This eclipses many of the reductions we have made," he says. Other increases have to do with implementation of reporting requirements of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.
According to Fox, the biggest reduction claimed by EPA comes as the result of changes in discharge monitoring report requirements under the Clean Water Act. "We estimate well more than 10 million hours have been saved, maybe even closer to 15 million hours," he says.
These changes allow companies that are achieving an overall superior level of compliance to submit monitoring reports of their water discharges less frequently. If a discharger can demonstrate to a state agency that it is consistently emitting a certain percentage under its permit limit, Fox explains, the agency will allow the discharger flexibility to do less discharge monitoring than it has been doing.
"If EPA hadn't been so aggressive about reducing paperwork, the burden would have increased substantially," says Fox.
Jeffrey C. Van, a spokesman for the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA), isn't convinced that EPA is doing as good a job as it would have people believe. "EPA's program reminds me of a person who's decided to go on a diet—but who goes on an eating binge before he begins. He gains 20 lb on the binge then loses what he's gained, and then brags that he's lost 20 lb," Van says. CMA is studying this issue and will respond within the next several weeks.
"EPA is moving aggressively to reduce existing burdens while still meeting its mandate," says Fox. "But new burdens are being required by Congress and we have to contend with them." Fox is proud of the agency's efforts: "We have stemmed the tide," he says.
Linda Raber
World Bank proposes steps to protect environment
In early June, the World Bank suggested 10 measures that it believes can have a real impact on protecting and improving the global environment. It offered these as advice to the leaders of about 60 countries that will be attending a special session of the United Nations General Assembly, June 23-27, and to the leaders of the eight largest industrialized countries, who are meeting June 20-22 in Denver.
The Earth Summit+5, as the UN meeting is called, will be assessing how much environmental progress has been made since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. "Despite remarkable progress in many areas," says Caio Koch-Weser, the World Bank's managing director of operations, "we are relatively further behind the curve than we were in 1992." Some examples of problems, he explains, include a 25% jump in carbon dioxide emissions in developing countries since the Rio meeting, species loss that has not been slowed, and air pollution that has worsened in most of the world's cities. "The bank is deeply concerned about the lack of momentum since the Rio Summit," he says.
Andrew Steer, director of the World Bank's environment department, and Koch-Weser describe several measures the world community can take to alleviate these problems. Some of them are to phase out lead in gasoline worldwide in five years, eliminate chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) more aggressively, set up a global
market for trading greenhouse gas emission credits, commit new money to the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), and expand traditional economic assessments to include depletion of natural resources and environmental damage. "Some of these steps could be implemented right away, others require considerable work," Koch-Weser says.
Currently, Russia, which under the Montreal protocol was supposed to stop making CFCs in 1995, is responsible for 45% of the world's CFC production. By smuggling CFCs into Western Europe and North America, Russia is undermining the CFC ban in those areas, Steer says. A World Bank-GEF initiative has convinced Russia to stop making CFCs by 2000 and has raised about $15 million of the $27 million needed to help Russia convert its CFC plants to the production of other substances, he says. Steer urges the major industrialized nations, at their upcoming meeting in Denver, to pledge the additional $12 million that is needed. A similar effort could help convert CFC plants in the world's remaining CFC-pro-ducing countries—India, China, South Korea, Venezuela, Brazil, and Mexico.
Despite the progress many countries have made in phasing out use of lead additives in gasoline, Koch-Weser says lead remains a serious problem in some areas, especially in the Arab world where populations are concentrated heavily in river valleys. Countries could recover the costs of converting to lead-free gasoline with reduced health care costs and economic savings, he says.
If a binding climate treaty is signed at the international conference on global
Koch-Weser: considerable work ahead Steer: aid emission reductions
2 6 ÏUNE 23. 1997 C&EN