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• v.28(1); 2020 Jun

A review of the current concerns about misconduct in medical sciences publications and the consequences

Taraneh mousavi.

Toxicology & Diseases Group, Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center (PSRC), The Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (TIPS), and Department of Toxicology & Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Mohammad Abdollahi

In the new era of publication, scientific misconduct has become a focus of concern including extreme variability of plagiarism, falsification, fabrication, authorship issues, peer review manipulation, etc. Along with, overarching theme of “retraction” and “predatory journals” have emphasized the importance of studying related infrastructures.

Information used in this review was provided through accessing various databases as Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Nature Index, Publication Ethics and Retraction Watch. Original researches, expert opinions, comments, letters, editorials, books mostly published between 2010 and 2020 were gathered and categorized into three sections of “Common types of misconduct”,” Reasons behind scientific misconduct” and “Consequences”. Within each part, remarkable examples from the past 10 years cited in Retraction Watch are indicated. At last, possible solution on combating misconduct are suggested.

The number of publications are on the dramatic rise fostering a competition under which scholars are pushed to publish more. Consequently, due to several reasons including poor linguistic and illustration skills, not adequate evaluation, limited experience, etc. researchers might tend toward misbehavior endangering the health facts and ultimately, eroding country, journal/publisher, and perpetrator’s creditability. The reported incident seems to be enhanced by the emergence of predatory with publishing about 8 times more papers in 2014 than which is in 2010. So that today, 65.3% of paper retraction is solely attributing to misconduct, with plagiarism at the forefront. As well, authorship issues and peer-review manipulation are found to have significant contribution besides further types of misconduct in this duration.

Given the expansion of the academic competitive environment and with the increase in research misconduct, the role of any regulatory sector, including universities, journals/publishers, government, etc. in preventing this phenomenon must be fully focused and fundamental alternation should be implemented in this regard.

Introduction

Over the past decade, the total documentation of solely 233 top global countries contained in Scopus database has increased from 2,771,765 in 2010 to approximately 4 million in 2018 according to SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR) [ 1 ] . Along with, a trend of “hyper authorship” or “mass authorship”, writing articles with more than 1000 co-authors, have increased about 2-fold over five past years [ 2 ]. These increments, more than other factors, is attributable to the significant rise in the number of universities, researchers and accordingly fostering a hypercompetitive environment in which publishing more articles or having higher metrics are told to be the only way of being successful. While it can be said that such atmosphere is beneficial for science growth, one must always keep in mind what are the detrimental consequences if there is improper academic evaluation; for instance easier entrance exam, inadequate supervision on professors performance, and paying more attention to personal desires including gaining scholarships, grants, carrier promotion, fame, and monetary benefits [ 3 , 4 ]. Going one step further, the undue attention to bibliometric used globally fosters this atmosphere within exerting unintended effects from negligible academic bullying (insulting, mistreating, embracing, humiliating) to more notably holding a place in employing or promoting professors because of higher metrics indices or pushing students to publish more articles deprived of practical application [ 5 , 6 ]. Indeed, today’s development of such questionable criteria may be rooted from lower academic levels where the precedence over average/scores for decision making or rewarding, teach students to cheat or make teachers to not anymore focus on the final goal of improving students’ knowledge [ 7 ]. So, it is not surprising then that lack of researcher’s knowledge from early stages, coupled with high academic pressure and innate desire to be outrank ultimately become a bullet firing research integrity and resultantly exerting detrimental effects of unethical principles so called “scientific misconduct” or “research fraudulence”. Existence of scientific misconduct in the field of medical sciences has shown to inflict very severe blows to the individual and public health; highlighting the immediate need of solution finding.

Thus, to help out meeting this challenge, this article begins with giving the definition and more recent types of research misconduct at the current, followed by providing a complete explanation on both reasons and consequences through remarkable examples and lastly offering possible solutions by addressing globally accepted guidelines. As far as we know, there is no similar study in the past decade with categorizing the contributory factors and outcomes in a detailed way. This is the first study in its kind focusing on the most recent top cases of misconduct, all can be served as a lesson for current researchers and be valuable to secure the future of research integrity.

Information used in this review was provided through accessing various databases as Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Nature Index, Publication Ethics and Retraction Watch. Searched terms mostly include “Scientific Misconduct”, “Misconduct in Research”, “Types of Misconduct in Research”, “Consequences of Scientific Misconduct”, “Global Burden of Publications and Misconduct” and many others. Original researches, expert opinions, comments, letters, editorials, books mostly published between 2010 and 2020 were also gathered and addressed.

Misconduct and common types

Scientific misconduct is a growing phenomenon defined as “fabrication, falsification or plagiarism in proposing, performing or reviewing research or in reporting research” according to the US Office of Research Integrity. By the other terms, the types of misconduct are, but not limited to, “FFP” standing for fabrication (reporting non-observed results), falsification (manipulating data or material) and plagiarism (the act of utilizing someone else’s statement, idea, methods or results without permission) [ 8 , 9 ] including salami-slicing, picture manipulation, self-plagiarism and text recycling; all defined in Table ​ Table1. 1 . As an example, in 2019, plagiarism detection company disclosed that of about 4 million Russian-language studies, 70,000 were republished from 2 to 17 times, mostly owing to self-plagiarism [ 10 ].

Most common types of research misconduct

More broadly, other types of misconduct i.e. authorship issues mainly “Guest Authorship”,“Gift Authorship” and “Ghost Authorship” and peer review manipulation have undergone a substantial expansion in developing and sanctioned countries possibly due the to restriction in publication [ 8 ]. In 2015, Springer Nature retracted 58 papers all containing authorship issues and peer review manipulation and 70% of which were due to plagiarism. The same experiment by BioMed Central revealed that peer-review manipulation accounted for 57%, plagiarism for 93% and authorship manipulation was a reason for all of retractions [ 11 ]. In the respect of authorship issues, ghost authorship is indicated in two different ways; first, senior researchers list those who had little or no cooperation with main author, like cases reported from the South Korea who write the name of the school-aged children as co-authors to increase the chance of university admissions [ 3 , 12 , 13 ]. Second, removing one’s name from the list of authors despite being contributed [ 14 ]. Guest authorship is also about fraudsters who abuse the name of famous researcher as co-author or corresponding author with the aim of increasing the chance of publication while the researcher has had no contribution [ 15 ]. As a report, a group of researchers did fake submission through using the prominent Dutch economist to ease acceptance. Interestingly, after questioning the editors, his name was removed in manuscript revision, saying he no longer wants to be among the author, however this attempt failed and the article was retracted due to the issue of guest authorship [ 16 ].

Compromising of peer-review integrity is of another type that has been coming to the fore in recent years. In 2012, a group of researchers used fake Elsevier Editorial System (EES) account, created a positive report from a fictional well-known referee hence mislead the editor [ 17 ]. Similar to this, a researcher lost 24 of his paper solely due to using fake email address and doing his own peer-review [ 18 ]. In 2015, BioMed Central (BMC) also removed 43 papers for fake reviews, mostly conducted by third party agencies providing fabricated details of potential peer-reviewers [ 19 ].

Unfortunately, greed for fame causes some peer reviewer to reject manuscript, steal and republish them under their own name. For instance, a submitted manuscript to Multimedia Tools and Applications (MTAP) that was under review for about 13 months with final rejection, was thoroughly plagiarized and republished days after by reviewer of the rejected manuscript, which is about peer review manipulation [ 20 ].

Bias, gender discrimination in particular, is another today’s issue on peer review process affecting submissions by female as corresponding author/first author to be more rejected even without providing peer review; which is revealed by the institute of physic (IOP) and the journal eLife , although it is hard to believe. One more analysis in 2018 by Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) also demonstrated that 25.6% and 34.2% of all rejected papers without peer review are one’s submitted by women as corresponding author or first author in respect [ 21 ]. Of note, in the current era with political issues, regional bias exists as well which makes some peer reviewers to not handle manuscript from sanctioned countries. This concern will be more discussed in the following section.

Reasons behind scientific misconduct

Main reasons: “publish or perish” and “a gap in knowledge”.

Today we face with the avalanche of admissions to university, growing number of researchers and resultantly the added pressure on academic environment, all strongly emphasize the contribution of the traditional culture of “publish or perish” in misconduct. Publish or Perish means there is a high pressure on scholars desiring for success to publish more articles in a very short duration otherwise there is no place for them in the academic competitive environment. One influential factor in this extent is the importance of articles quantity and metrics rather than quality in nowadays research which has made publishing compulsory. For instance, sometimes we see somebody publishes several articles just in a month or students aiming to secure their position/improve their CVs, rather than paying attention to effective learning, waste more time writing worthlessness articles [ 5 ]. Then, what could be the reason and outcomes of these except that one has violated authorship issues or will employ misconduct? [ 23 , 24 ]

Besides the culture of Publish or Perish, there is another reason behind scientific misconduct with the rapid advent which is the issue of “A Gap in Knowledge” appearing either in the shape of lacking linguistic, illustration or scientific skills.

On the other terms, some researchers, mostly undergraduates, often insist on authoring more papers so as to add a line to their CVs and obtain scholarships. However, in some cases, they may generally lack enough scientific and lingual information which could be later problematic and cause misinterpretation [ 8 ]. The recent incident occurs more in developing countries including China, Malaysia, Mexico, Taiwan, and Pakistan according to reports [ 8 , 25 ]. As a main reason, non-native-English-speaking authors are contributing who might misunderstand the subject, thus either declare mistaken perception or copy the statements without having permission or including references. Moreover, the challenge of “linguistic interference” and/or “poor illustration skills” that are rooted from not passing the relevant courses, place major restriction on authors asked to write review articles or editorials by way of expressing the similar idea in different words [ 26 ]. By the same token, the abuse of the language differences, may end in additional fraudulence where a researcher translate non-English texts (for example especially Chinese) into English and republish under his/her own names [ 4 ].

Other reasons

Senior researchers.

The reasons behind scientific misconduct are not limited to reported factors as it can attribute to masters whom themselves carry out unreliable studies and/or persuade others into it.

In this respect, the matter of “bias” causes some supervisors to compare their student’s results with prior successful ones and lay the blame if they are not encouraging enough. Thus the intention to publish more along with fear of blame, make academics start data alternation and selectively report the supporting outcomes which is referred to as “cooking” or “suppression” [ 9 ]. Here, authorship issues, guest authorship in particular, may also be raised when supervisors don’t devote adequate energy and time to the work under their direction and set early researchers to do it alone [ 23 ]. Aside from, high pressure in academic environment may lead masters to get more exhausted, frustrated and greedy for carrier promotion and research grants accompanied by higher metrics (i.e. number of articles, citations, etc.). The lack of proper monitoring or available working reports, then, let masters easily employ academic bullying like insulting, mistreating, embracing and humiliating, altogether result in a sense of fear particularly among undergraduates and push them toward unethical principles to gain satisfactory outcomes [ 6 ]. Quite the reverse, there are supervisors who find punishing and exposing offenses contrary to ethical values and always offer fraudsters forgiveness. This exemplary behavior, rooting from the cultural belief, not allows the wrongdoer to learn from his/her mistake, hence one may continue doing unethical principles [ 23 ].

Digital publishing is of another aspect of provoking misconduct where profitable individuals take every opportunities and start predatory printing to set researchers (esp. undergraduates) up [ 4 ]. These fraudsters, at the expense of the authors (called article processing charges, or APCs) print articles in fake journals without necessary proper checking the quality and not providing edition services [ 4 , 27 – 30 ]. A study in 2017 suggested that some journals are willing to include the names of researchers seeking for a carrier promotion in manuscript revisions for a fee and by paying more, researchers can even be introduced as a journal editor [ 31 , 32 ]. Nevertheless, a very recent research on 250 predatory journals implied that although the amount of papers published in predatory journals have increased about 8 times within 2010 to 2014, they seem to barely question the accuracy of research. Forasmuch as 59.6% of papers published in such journals have no citation and just around 2.8% cited more than 11 times limited to 32 citation at most [ 33 ].

Along with fake publication, fraudsters sometimes start naming their journals under the deceptive titles like “international” or “world” [ 4 ] or manipulating journal impact factor (IF) through exploiting excessive “self-citation” or planned citations from sister journals [ 9 , 34 ]. As well, some invalid journals only publish articles containing positive outcomes [ 27 ] or that are in the title of “novel” so that researchers are forced to report negative data and employ suppression. Taking collectively, after a short while, obscure journals will reach to an upper position, even around 18 ranks [ 9 ], and get a lot of attention despite including nonscientific content.

Political issues and sanctions

Last but not least, the influence of strict political sanctions on science and technology progress is the other concern that must be specifically focused nowadays. With looking back through the history, in 1965, boycott on South Africa affected almost 57% of academics destroying the chance of manuscript submission, global collaboration, and access to database [ 35 ]. Similarly, an almost-total financial and trade sanctions to the Iraqi republic during 1990–2003 posed many problems for providing drugs, medical equipment, accessing to medical journals, and textbooks and more importantly it prevented diplomas and graduates form continuing their education [ 36 , 37 ]. Aforesaid conditions made by the US against Iran, drastically affect science for instance through limiting the collaboration of scientists in two countries [ 23 , 38 , 39 ] that may drive some unexperienced researchers to be trapped by predatory journals [ 40 ].

Sometimes, publishers/editors/reviewers may disapprove handling articles from sanctioned countries and review the author rather than the article. Albeit, such discrimination is banned as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) emphasized “ Editorial decisions should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit and publish should not be determined by the policies of governments or other agencies outside of the journal itself .” [ 41 ]. Fortunately, some journals strongly decided to not allow the political matters affecting their scientific condition, so they continued usual collaboration with scientists in a very positive way [ 37 , 40 ]. For instance, The Lancet declared “ We are disappointed that some publishers have created the impression that work from Iran should be discriminated against. This attitude is contrary to the spirit and values of global science. We are currently working to deepen our relationship with Iranian medical and public health scientists, and we look forward to publishing the results of that collaboration, which, we hope, will include Iran’s Ministry of Health ” [ 37 ] (Fig. ​ (Fig.1 1 ).

The general overview on scientific misconduct including divisions and the main contributory reasons

Consequences

The point here is, although unethical implication is valuable for pushy researchers and self-interested journals, it can lead to far-reaching consequences whether on public health or on liable individual.

Effects on public health

The fact is when those working as a public health providers including nurses, pharmacists, doctors, dentists or some university masters, rather referring to more up-to-date articles than reading old textbooks, they gradually incorporate these new methods, medications and materials into treatment protocols. Then, if ambition or financial gain are prioritized and the patient is considered merely as a “customer”, both researchers [ 42 ] and even the world’s largest companies [ 26 , 43 ] may endanger patients’ life and damage doctors’ confidence [ 27 ] through the act of processing worthless information and data alternation. For instance, the antidiabetic drug branded Avandia was abruptly withdrawn from markets in 2010 due to life-threatening side effects. A decade earlier in 1999, its severe cardiotoxicity was reported but the manufacturer refuted that claim and continued selling the drug [ 43 – 45 ]. In another published report, a sharp rise to the prevalence of measles, mumps, and rubella happened during 2002 due to a false assertion rooted from uncontrolled project design and small sample size ( n  = 12). In 1998, a group indicated that MMR vaccine may have severe adverse effects and cause autism in children hence prohibited doctors and parents from using this medicine [ 9 , 42 , 46 , 47 ]. However, one of the authors later explained that at most 2 subjects had the reported autism-like symptoms whilst the article reported more supporting results about 8 out of 12 subjects [ 47 ].

Endangering public health can also be ascribed to the lack of oversight of the manufacturer and physician association. Based on the Rhee and Rhos recent study conducted through linking Medicare & Medicaid Services 2014–2016 Part D prescribing data to Open Payments data, manufacturer of the 3 branded Gabapentinoid allocated about $11.5 million funds (gifts, educational supports, travel costs, etc.) for 14.4% of all physicians prescribing any brand of this medicine despite it is proved to express safety concerns [ 48 , 49 ].

Effects on perpetrator

Apart from social impact, employing misconduct, no matter what the kind is, generally threats both perpetrator’s credit and country reputation through introducing financial penalties [ 50 ], resulting in lengthy suspension from education [ 51 ] and work [ 52 ] and even throwing offender into prison [ 53 ] all just owing to “paper retraction”. Plethora of articles particularly ones in the field of medical sciences are now not accepted or blocked/retracted mostly due to the intentional misconduct instead of unintentional errors [ 9 ]. According to one descriptive study on 4,284,945 publications indexed in PubMed from January 1st, 2013- December 31st, 2016, 1082 of articles (at the rate of 2.5 per 10,000 publication) were retracted whereas 707 of retractions were solely due to an intentional misconduct (65.3%) [ 54 ]. Another comprehensive review by Nature publishing group confirmed the 10-fold rise in the number of retracted articles during 1977 and 2010 [ 55 ]. These statistics are emphasized once the number of authors increases. Put differently, articles with equal or more than 7 authors accounted for 33.3% of all retractions in the course of 2013 to 2016, highlighting the importance of “multiple authorship” in promoting dishonesty [ 12 , 54 ]. Also, considering the share of each type of fraud in retraction, both aforesaid reports pointed to the plagiarism’s first place followed by falsification/fabrication, peer-review process, authors, and journal issues, respectively as you can see the recent most prominent examples of them in Table ​ Table2 2 .

The recent most important retractions due to scientific misconduct and their consequences

The table referred to 10 top retractions within past decade. All data were collected randomly through accessing Retraction Watch, Nature, The Lancet and other reported data bases and journals

What is important here is that due to lack of proper tools, there is always a difficulty in recognizing whether misconduct is conducted deliberately or deceptively which prolongs the time of decision, leads to misinformation for long period of time and the net effect is often inaction [ 69 ]. Even if the article is finally retracted, some journals refuse to reveal it, however they should put a watermark on it, according to COPE. Such shirking makes retracted articles to be cited over and over again while other researchers are not aware of the retraction, thus rapidly spread the false and misleading results; such as what happened on the case of Wakefield’s article. In 1998 Wakefield et al. reported the inaccurate results of the relation between MMR and autism in children found in 2010. According to references, this group did an uncontrolled experiment and eventually the paper was retracted after 12 years. Nonetheless, many researchers made reference to this study prior to retraction; byword, in 2002 another article entitled “Vaccine and Autism” was published in the Journal of Laboratory Medicine with emphasizing on the harmfulness of vaccination and referencing to that 1998 paper. Interestingly, although Wakefield’s article was pulled in 2010, editors of Lab Medicine did not retrieve it until 2018, when they first withdrew the article but later made the paper available with watermark [ 70 , 71 ]. Indeed, excepting these not so minor conditions, there are also heavier fines worldwide.

At the reported case of drug Avandia, US authorities punished the manufacturer to pay $3bn; the highest settlement in pharmaceutical industry. Likewise, in 2009, another company got $2.3bn reprimand since it promoted the off-label use of four drugs branded Bextra, Geodon, Zyvox, Lyrica [ 4 , 72 ]. It should also be kept in mind that, handling each research misconduct at the institutional level in the U.S carries a cost of approximately $525,000 and all cases annually costs over $110 million. Looking in more detail, during 1992 and 2012, $58 M funding from National Institute of Health had been dedicated to solely 291 misconduct-based retracted articles; each accounted for about $400,000 [ 7 ].

Taken as a whole, the need for combating against research fraud remains unmet; the best way of which is to highly emphasize on quality-in-research rather than quantity. As an approach toward this, more research institutions, researchers, funding agencies, scientific communities and journals should stop decision-making based on metrics and adopt the San Francisco Declaration of Research Assessment (DORA), an aggregation provided in 2013 that invites all to reduce evaluation and consideration solely based on metrics.

Numerous infrastructures from academic institutions to government should also retain research integrity by way of providing specific policies and establishing additional regulatory agencies in countries with high rate of misconduct, China and USA included.

Among these, institutions and journals have an inseparable and reciprocal relationship that is not seriously considered in many regions. Universities and journals should have proper collaboration, fully answer relevant questions in the come up misconduct cases and not let wrong stuff get used to people’s lives and health.

In this extent, Universities are the only structures to watch academic environment plus creating healthy competition, making careful faculty’s evaluation and improving student’s scientific knowledge. They should always keep in mind that there are many parameters other than publication that can be additionally measured for the qualifying students to graduate. Thus, students should not be placed in the severe condition of pressure to publish for graduation as this might cause some to look for misconduct acts.

Journal editors and peer-reviewers must carry out close investigation into articles, thoroughly follow the guidelines and flowcharts of specially the COPE and not put any limitation on articles submitted by sanctioned countries. Retracted papers should be clearly marked, not removed and the journal ought to provide a “blacklist” of fraudsters who frequently employ misconduct. Documentation with multiple co-authors requires close inspection of each contributor details and could be published on the condition of fulfilling authorship criteria. To avoid manipulation of peer review system it is better for journals to turn off the automated system in which authors can provide the contact information of potential reviewers, as BMC did. Instead, authors can suggest potential reviewers in their cover letter. More procedures which institutions and journals are in charge for are available in Table ​ Table3 3 .

Role of institutions and journals as first barriers to overcome scientific misconduct [ 45 ]

In line with external factors, scholars and researchers themselves should be able to step up their language (esp. English) or illustration skills and attend advanced courses, hence overcome the tendency of duplication and plagiarism. Also to avoid losing their authorship right and developing issues like ghost or guest authorship, scholars are better to reach an agreement with other authors at the start of the work and quickly report dereliction to the relevant institution or journal, if there is any.

More considerable, authors should spot predatory journals via thoroughly checking journal’s contact information, articles issues, and membership in prestigious indexing databases such as Web of Science and scientific committees, editorial board, and peer-review process. Albeit, relying on just these items are insufficient since predatory journals may find a way to be listed in the COPE or similar agencies to appear valid. Therefore, in this case, more than the author’s role, in-charge agencies of publication ethics should invite all people to fight against predatory journals, either in the form of creating more forums, meetings and educational campaigns or by providing a consensual definition of predatory and its destructive effects which is absolutely essential. Providing black list journals is not recommended while a white list of journals could better help scholars of each universities. In view of top officials, legal retributions ranging from cutting grants to limiting academic and carrier promotion should be brought on any minor misconduct. Government should also set sufficient research budget, provide laboratory equipment and confine university admissions.

To sum up, there is an ever increasing incidence of scientific misconduct all around the world with plagiarism, authorship issues and peer review manipulation at the front mainly due to the excess pressure on academic environment and paying much attention to metrics that leaves a gap in knowledge. The importance of predatory journals and political issues i.e. severe sanctions, especially in the current era of publication are also among other critical factors that should not be missed. But what is really perturbing is that misconduct regardless what the type or reason is, could significantly impact on community and preparatory by the means of imposing major financial or jail punishments, violating preparatory/journal credit within paper retraction, getting suspension from education/work and more noticeably causing many deaths. Thus, it is of high priority for both infrastructures and researchers to seek for a fundamental solution to eradicate this phenomenon before impairing society anymore.

Authors’ contribution

MA conceived and supervised whole study from idea to writing. TM contributed in the search, drafting the article, and designing the figures.

This article is the outcome of an in-house financially non-supported study.

Compliance with ethical standards

Authors declare no conflict interest. The corresponding author of this article with regards to his position as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, has been fully blind to all handling and review processes.

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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NIH Extramural Nexus

Case Study in Research Integrity – Banned From Supervising, Can’t Go in Lab, but No Impact on NIH Funded Research?

28 comments.

We have seen rising numbers of allegations related to harassment, discrimination, and hostile work environments since 2018 (when we first started tracking them). In many cases, we successfully work with recipient institutions to put appropriate measures in place to address unsafe working environments. These measures may include removing the principal investigator (PI) from the award or putting additional oversight measures in place. However, too often we hear from institutions that a PI has violated the institution’s policies and is no longer permitted to supervise students or staff, but there will be “no impact on NIH-funded work.”

We have a problem with this response. How can the NIH-funded work not be impacted if the PI has been found not suitable to supervise others? This situation causes us to worry not only about the safety of the lab environment, but also about the message that this behavior sends to the entire institution. We must ensure that NIH-funded research is being conducted in a safe and respectful environment conducive to high quality research.

Let’s look further. The example presented here is based on true experiences, with all identifiable information changed or removed. Please also keep in mind that in general NIH makes awards to institutions . Our engagement is focused on institutions, who in turn employ researchers designated on NIH awards.

A lab technician in Dr. Jones’ lab was working, what seemed to be, excessively long hours with very little time for personal breaks, including lunch and dinner. Research personnel often work long hours you might be thinking, especially considering that Dr. Jones was a PI on multiple NIH grants with progress reports due and manuscripts planned. But this was going to the extreme, and other working conditions became more and more stressful.

Gender appeared to dictate how some assignments were made. Favoritism led to how lab resources were distributed. Tensions rose further as unprofessional behaviors became more and more commonplace. People’s positions in the lab were threatened if they didn’t produce expected results. They were afraid to make a mistake.

This situation is not conducive to the high-quality research that NIH expects, and too often it is junior staff and trainees that bear the brunt of these behaviors.

The technician in this example had had enough. Summoning up the strength and fortitude, they notified their institution’s human resources office about the situation. After a thorough internal investigation, Dr. Jones’ behavior—mistreatment of lab staff, bullying, inappropriate statements, and threats of retaliation—was found to have violated institutional policies and caused a hostile and unsafe work environment.

The recipient institution acted. Dr. Jones was placed on a performance improvement plan that involved no direct supervision of lab members and the requirement to seek supervisory training and coaching on interpersonal communications. After a year, Dr. Jones’ progress and the overall workplace climate would be assessed to determine if restrictions can be modified or eliminated.

The recipient institution self-reported the outcome of their investigation and the actions taken to us, which is a requirement of accepting an NIH grant. We appreciated that the institution was taking the issue seriously and putting steps into place to address the inappropriate behavior.

Our eyebrows rose, however, when the institution noted that there would be no impact on the NIH grants and that Dr. Jones would remain the PI on multiple awards even though they are not permitted to supervise staff or trainees.

Wait, what?

There is a PI out there who is not trusted to supervise people because they created a hostile workplace, but yet it is fine for them to continue overseeing NIH awards?

From the NIH perspective, this is a compliance problem, not a disciplinary issue (see NIH Grants Policy statement 8.5 for more about steps NIH may take to remedy noncompliance). Part of proper stewardship of federal awards is having recipients ensure that the researchers they designate on an application not only intellectually lead a project, but logistically too (see NIH grants Policy Statement 2.1.2 ).

Another way to think of it: what if a grant application was submitted with a PI who could not supervise. How is that conducive to high quality research? Would this application get a fundable score in this highly competitive environment? It makes us wonder if this taxpayer money could have gone elsewhere.

We hope that, by bringing attention to this issue, recipients will consider other options about who will lead their NIH-supported projects in similar situations as a way to continue ensuring safe and respectful workplaces, conducive to the highest quality science.

If you have a concern about harassment, discrimination, and other forms of inappropriate conduct at your institution, please find help .

Editor’s Note (added 8/16/23 in response to reader comments): This particular case study was based on various real world examples. If an institution, which is responsible for senior/key personnel on an NIH-funded grant, is not in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies, NIH can, and has, taken several actions that could result in a change in senior personnel, or other grant actions. See our data on outcomes: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/harassment/data .

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“A lab technician in Dr. Jones’ lab was working, what seemed to be, excessively long hours with very little time for personal breaks, including lunch and dinner. Gender appeared to dictate how some assignments were made. Favoritism led to how lab resources were distributed. Tensions rose further as unprofessional behaviors became more and more commonplace. People’s positions in the lab were threatened if they didn’t produce expected results. They were afraid to make a mistake.”

LOL. Welcome to the kind and gentle world of academia. Such behaviors are exceedingly common, especially in ethnically homogeneous labs where labor is imported from overseas, and workers are afraid to speak out lest they find themselves out of a job and have to return to their home countries. These workers have no rights or recourse because the well-funded PI is the darling of institutional powers that are drunk on those indirect costs the PI brings in, and the detached NIH officials will take no action.

I know a few Dr Jones. I am sure everyone does. They are likely to be the highly insecure petty emperors, who selfishly steal their post-doc’s research data and ideas, do not tolerate independent thought/criticism, do not support independence of their trainees, hire slave labor from abroad, and will take money from wherever they can get it, even if it means compromising national security, and not disclose the sources of their funding.

If Dr. Jones is no longer the PI and there is no scientifically appropriate alternate PI to take over so the award is terminated, what happens to the technician’s job?

I understand the intent, but it seems to me that this might be a case of perverse incentives.

i had this very same question- what action is this article suggesting?

These situations will continue to be common as long as 1) the institution values the grant funding more than protecting its employees, 2) the jobs and careers of trainees are dependent on the ongoing beneficence of their PI, and 3) the NIH continues to fund investigators despite their commonly-known misbehaviors. Study section members know who these folks are and continue to recommend funding knowing that 1) nothing in study section is secret and 2) these PIs are their collaborators, their manuscript reviewers, and will be reviewing their own grants. If they want to fix the system, they need to have a mechanism by which whistleblowers don’t lose their jobs/careers/visas when they report, because right now the cost of speaking up far outweighs the benefits…because there are no benefits.

If the NIH were more serious about eliminating all room for subterfuge in this space, then they could make it mandatory that funded institutes release personnel records of complaints against PIs. Until then, relying on self-reporting is going to perpetuate plausible deniability and not help people who would acutely benefit from this info.

Signing as myself, and as someone who has gone through reporting NIH-funded PIs for shenanigans. I would encourage others to do so as well to break the cycle of assumed power in academia. We give these folks the power they use over us. Remember that we can take it back. I found a better place after leaving past abusive environments. Whistleblowing isn’t a death sentence. A career in science shouldn’t feel like one, either.

So…. at no point does this article tell us what happened to Dr. Jones. Was his funding pulled? Why is this information left out? And if it was NOT pulled, then what is the point of this article?

This case study example was based on true experiences, not necessarily a specific incident. That said, and as described on our NIH Actions and Oversight page , “If an institution, which is responsible for senior/key personnel on an NIH-funded grant, is not in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies, NIH can take several actions that could include or result in a change in senior personnel, or remedies for noncompliance, such as suspension or termination of the grant award.”

So what is the correct response? You never answer the key question here. I can tell you from experience that the work on the grant WAS impacted from at least the moment that the internal investigation was started. Should someone have been designated as PI- first runner up? And if so, how does that impact their ability to gain funding?

As noted in a response to an earlier comment, this particular case study was based on various real world examples. If an institution, which is responsible for senior/key personnel on an NIH-funded grant, is not in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies, NIH can, and has, taken several actions that could result in a change in senior personnel, or other grant actions. See our data on outcomes https://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/harassment/data .

Can I PLEASE come work for you? I am an advocate leader of an organization, who I myself have been threatened, and we have lost incredibly excellent undergrads and post docs because of it! It’s infuriating because we’re losing great minds. There’s no oversight research in the labs and people being forced to change data because they’re scared. Their entire career are threatened all because of the need to publish and make it look good. This affects our patient communities this affects drug development. And by God, I don’t care about being a whistleblower because these types of people do not deserve MY PUBLIC TAX DOLLARS, and don’t deserve the accolades or recognition they’ve received. It’s been part of the “greater institution”. If you have to threaten someone to get ahead or lie, then you don’t deserve my $$$, I went to law school to defend, ethics and compliance and create environments where there’s fair, reasonable distribution of funds and work, and credit where credit is due, if you got a job opening, by God, I will take it because I am scared of no one, why? It won’t change my sons disorder and helping our patient communities. Somebody needs to put their foot down, and I am not scared to do it! There are people that have done incredible research, and they have been blackballed, just like me if you’d like to see the emails I’m happy to share. And keep in mind some that don’t go along with what the other more powerful people say will be blackballed too.

There are plenty of Dr. Jones’ out there for sure. However, when a PI is restricted from having students in their labs, no one knows except through the rumor mill. I know faculty who have such restrictions, but as far as I know, NIH has never been notified and many folks even on our campus do not know. In my decades of experience, study sections do not know who the bad guys are at all. Many of them keep getting more and more grants and only view trainees and assistants as nothing more than data generators with little regard to their careers. I don’t care if they publish in Nature, but science is not helped by these people. Finally, the biggest barrier is that institutions want the prestige and indirect costs from the grants and so they are in a conflict of interest when it comes to reporting this or frankly any sort of scientific misconduct. I don’t see any way of improving the situation unless NIH has penalties for bad behavior even for the institutions if they turn blind eyes.

Summarized the heart of the problem so well!

A great many of child abusers were abused as children. The hostile lab environment has been propagated by generations of NIH-funding investigators. Like gender discrimination and sexual harassment being called out by the ME-TOO movement, hostile work environment is being called out now. The NIH is dependent on the grantee Institutions for enforcing fair treatment of laboratory workers, students and postdocs. It is not possible for the NIH or the study section to conduct such enforcement. In other words, keeping PIs in check is a local responsibility and requires local enforcement. The most effective way, in my view, is for workers, students and postdocs in an Institution to share their experiences working with hostile PIs among each other. The best way to shut down a hostile PI is to deprive that person of lab members. Perhaps NIH can require grantee institutions to develop an intra-net for laboratory workers in NIH-funded labs so that they can share their experiences and warn others not to join the labs of hostile PIs.

I have a ‘Dr. Jones’ or two in my own department, but my institution seems to do everything in its power to sweep issues under the rug. For instance, one of these ‘Dr. Jones’ was unable to take graduate students or post-docs due to harassment and misconduct. I didn’t learn about this until last year, and this year this PI had summer students working in their lab, but no one seems to know why they are suddenly able to mentor again.

I come from a very blue-collar background; I have an unfortunately intimate knowledge on what hostile work environments look like. What I’ve found during my time as a PhD student is that Academic jobs, unlike ‘normal’ jobs, seem to be suffering from a historic lack of oversight or even care when it comes to PIs’ management of their lab. Even though a university or college within a university is the ‘employer’, at least so far as my W-2s are concerned, each PI is able to run their lab however they see fit, and toxicity is the norm in many cases. Just in my institution, I’ve seen verbal and emotional abuse, research and profession misconduct, nepotism, favoritism, brazen retaliation—the list goes on. The institutional response has been overwhelmingly underwhelming in each of these cases. And I know several of these have been reported to the NIH.

Until I see different, articles like these only serve as exercises in virtue signaling. Until these PIs face actual and measurable consequences from both their funding sources and their respective institutions, nothing will change.

What was the outcome in this example?

It would seem that one solution would be to consider whistleblower status for these staff. Taking government money, and then using it in a way that violates the law, certainly violates some federal law. Right now, these poor staff gain little by complaining and the PI loses almost nothing from abusing staff. What if the grant dollars needed to be refunded to the government and the staff that reported the violation got a quarter of the value of the grant that funded this illegal behavior? Now institutions would be less enamored with the “hard charging” abusers.

There is another view here that should be considered. Some institutions do internal investigations of so-called “hostile” work environments, without getting the full story. I know of a colleague who was accused of creating a hostile environment by a disgruntled graduate student who was not making good progress on her milestones. The student complained to two other faculty who then took the complaint to the Chair and eventually to the Dean. No one talked to the faculty PI to get their side, which would have been the appropriate first step. After three separate investigations, the final conclusion was that there was no empirical basis for the graduate student’s complaint. Nevertheless, the Dean rejected the conclusion of the Faculty Investigative Committee and made an independent decision, not based on facts. The Dean also reported her conclusion to NIH but stated that the NIH grant was not affected by the alleged PI behavior. Indeed, the PI was able to continue work on the grant, despite the Dean doing everything possible to disrupt the PI’s life due to both age and sex discrimination. The bottom line is that NIH and others should obtain all sides of a story and not assume that if a university does an investigation that it is fair and accurate. Deans and other faculty often have their own agenda. I don’t know the details of Dr. Jone’s behaviors in your example, but please find out before condemning him and assuming that the grant work cannot get done.

I totally agree with this post. Many institutions use claims of professionalism, unsubstantiated, and notify NIH, as a retaliation or discrimination strategy against a PI. I would go further to say that women and people of color are frequently targeted with these strategies when they successfully get NIH grants.

Response to Another Perspective II: Indeed. That is exactly what happened. There are always two sides to every alleged behavior. Unsubstantiated accusations can cause a lot of disruption and damage, especially when the accusations turn out not to be supported by facts. The bottom line is that NIH should not assume that a university has done a truly fair and unbiased investigation and not accept the conclusions of the university without getting information from the accused PI as well.

Question. Did the NIH leave the funding in place assigned to Dr Jones, or require the institution to document how research will actually be impacted? This story so far did not reveal that answer.

I feel that the NIH Staff response of “See our data on outcomes” to the numerous questions above of how the NIH would react to the composite scenario is disingenuous. Clearly, many of us want to know: if the story were true as written, what would the NIH do? The answer is important because it will influence our decision to report cases or not.

But let’s look at that data by clicking through to https://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/harassment/data

From 1 January 2018 – 15 April 2023, there were 76 cases of substantiated sexual harassment. This number is almost certainly very low. The reasons are, as others have noted above, that the backlash to individuals who report can be severe, and the incentives for universities are perverse. This situation leads other commenters above to use appropriately strong words, like “plausible deniability” (from Alejandro) and “virtue signaling” (from AGS).

Of the 76 substantiated allegations, only 56 (less than 3/4) resulted in the removal of a PI. I assume this means removal of the PI from the NIH grant. If the substantiated allegations were for even worse things (sexual harassment plus something else), an even smaller fraction, less than 2/3 of PIs (19/31), were removed. Why aren’t these numbers closer to 100%? What happened in the other cases? I am sympathetic to the post by “Another perspective” that some accusations may be false. However, my own experience is closer to that described in the post by “David P.”, in which there are many examples of PIs who behave like the fictional Dr. Jones but have never been reported, or as that described by “AGS” in which cases have been reported, but nothing has been done.

Last, I want to offer my sympathies to Jean Wang who has posted above. If you are the same Jean Wang who described experiencing unwanted physical advances by Inder Verma, I want to tell you that I am so sorry that happened to you. For any readers who are not familiar with the case, it appears in the Science article “Famed cancer biologist allegedly sexually harassed women for decades.”

Jean posted an idea about how people can more effectively share information about abusive PIs. The only current clearinghouse of information that I know about is the Academic Sexual Misconduct Database at academic-sexual-misconduct-database.org. For legal reasons, the only data in that set come from public information, such as news articles, which means that the database captures only a small fraction of all cases. Nevertheless, it is useful, so if any of you know of publicly reported cases that do not appear in the database, please share the relevant public document with the e-mail listed at the bottom of their website ([email protected]). Until funders and institutions step up their game to do the right thing, we should, at the very least, nurture the few resources we have.

It is important to note that of the 206 allegations/notifications, only 154 (75%) of sexual harassment allegations had enough information to move forward to the institution. ((154/206)*100 = 75%) Of the 154 that moved forward to the institution, 138 (90%) were formally investigated by the institution. ((138/154)*100 = 90%) Of the 138 investigated by institutions, 76 (55%) were substantiated. ((76/138)*100 = 55%)

Regarding the 56 PIs removed from awards, the category of “Principle Investigator Removed” represents situations in which the award continued, but without the particular PI attached to the project. There are other cases in which awards were terminated without going through the PI removal process. These cases are not reflected in the “Principle Investigator Removed” category at this time; they are reflected in “other grants actions.” “Other institutional safeguards” represent other meaningful actions taken by the institution.

NIH is committed to following up on all reports of allegations of harassment on NIH-funded projects at recipient institutions. If there are concerns that harassment, including sexual harassment, discrimination, or other forms of inappropriate conduct that can result in a hostile work environment is affecting an NIH-funded project, we want to know about it. Notification may be done anonymously (but we do need enough information to allow us to follow up). Learn what to expect when notifying NIH .

Until there is a check box on NIH/NSF grant applications that asks “Have any of the PIs on this proposal been investigated for a Title IX (or other workplace HR problem) violation?” and provision made for an explanation if the answer is “Yes,” nothing will change. There is a box to check for use of stem cells, etc., but nothing to screen for bad PIs. Institutions do not want to police their own faculty who continue to bring in grants, so bad PIs thrive, as long as they bring in grant money. NIH/NSF could help thwart the continuation of bad work environments due to bad PIs, simply by making it clear that HR violations/investigations and good science do not mix.

Just because someone has been investigated doesn’t mean that the alleged violation is factually true. If such a check box was added, it should state that the investigation found irrefutable evidence to support the complaint.

Another dimension to these complex situations is TIME. Trainees and postdocs are on a timeline given their training appointments year to year. Faculty running labs have spent years developing and running their labs. The time between trainees/lab staff recognizing problems, bringing problems forward to University officials, starting an investigation, completing an investigation, and making recommendations to NIH takes years. And during the “investigation,” nothing is said locally or reported to NIH, because evidence of wrongdoing has not been made. Right now, there are only two responses: innocent or guilty, and nothing can be done until those determinations have been finalized. Is there any utility for a category of “under review” to inform university leadership and NIH that there is an ongoing concern, and that steps are being made to investigate and resolve the problem? A suspected problem is identified, but no definitive conclusions are drawn, pending review. Then down the road the university can come to a conclusion and inform NIH of their findings.

From a management perspective, these complex complaints require lots of time and energy and everyone carries an additional administrative burden, except the PI. The PI is protected by protracted silence.

The bid Elephant in the Room is that disrespect, bullying, and hostile environments most commonly start at the top and filter down to individual PIs. The Provost, VP of Research, and Deans, and even some ‘Endowed’ institutional Chairmen turn their backs on the Values Policies that are touted by Presidents and Chancellors. You forget that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Therefore, institutions who have these kinds of negative environments are run by a corporate business philosophy which is more and more common these days to focus on the money rather than the welfare of their faculty. These Senior officials rarely have any real research experience, let alone understand what all it takes to collect pilot data, apply, submit, and actually obtain funding. These Senior officials are usually the key instigators of providing the horrible and hostile work environment and yet I have never seen any get reprimanded. Instead, they get rewarded from pushing their authority beyond the boundaries of civil behavior that should never be tolerated. With Federal indirect costs of 48% and higher, to Senior officials it is just a money-making pyramid to provide an academic infrastructure to keep well-funded ‘jerks’ in the lab and at the Senior administrative level at the cost of losing really good scientists, teachers, and students who are only asking for help to do their jobs better while getting the respect that they deserve.

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• Policy & Compliance
• Research Misconduct
• What Happens If There Is a Finding of Research Misconduct?

What Happens if there is a Finding of Research Misconduct?

If an individual involved in NIH funded research is found to have committed research misconduct, the administrative actions that may be taken against this person may include, but are not limited to:

• debarment from eligibility to receive Federal funds for grants and contracts
• prohibition from service on Public Health Service (PHS) advisory committees, peer review committees, or as consultants
• certification of information sources by the respondent that is forwarded by the institution
• certification of data by the institution
• imposition of supervision on the respondent by the institution
• submission of a correction of published articles by the respondent
• submission of a retraction of published articles by the respondent

Is there an appeals process?

The institution (recipient) may impose additional penalties on the individual which may include loss of employment.

Please also read  NIH Grants Policy Statement section 4.1.27  on research misconduct and recipient responsibilities.

This page last updated on: November 29, 2018

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Weekly Newsletter: May 10, 2024

The Unintended Consequences of Noble Intentions

I wanted to give you all an update on an issue I’ve been asked about several times lately, which is the bill I recently had to vote NO on in the House. It was a bill called the “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” but truthfully, the title was misleading.

Too often, Congress speedily advances well-intended but poorly drafted legislation that actually does more damage than the issue it attempts to address. That was the case with this bill. It may have been well-intentioned, but it contained language that was way too broad and I believe violated free speech rights. In trying to condemn antisemitism, the text went so far as to list things that could be labeled as “hate speech.” Under this bill, even someone reading Biblical passages talking about Jesus’s crucifixion could be accused of “hate speech.”

These were issues that could have been fixed had House Leadership allowed for Member input, but as we were working to solve the problems, leadership steamrolled us and scheduled the vote anyway. That’s not the way the people’s house should work.

What’s happening towards our Jewish brothers and sisters is shameful and should be dealt with. It is indicative of a much bigger problem and a sickness within our country that leaders need to deal with head-on. But playing leftist games and labeling things “hate speech” not only violates free speech rights, it pretends we’re doing something useful when we really aren’t.

Instead, we should be focusing our attention on using Congress’ Constitutional power of the purse to defund taxpayer-funded institutions pushing ideologies like antisemitism. We should also block President Biden’s bureaucracy from getting more funding after he, once again, ignored clear Congressional direction (also known as the law) to speedily deliver military aid to Israel. Let’s actually use our leverage to implement consequences and change – not just push talking points.

I hope that explains my position for those of you asking. I’ll continue to keep you updated.

Testifying for Mark Swidan’s Release

Last week, I had the honor of testifying on behalf of Katherine Swidan, mother of Chinese political prisoner Mark Swidan, at a roundtable hosted by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In 2012, Mark embarked on a business trip to China, only to be unjustly detained by the communist Chinese government. To this day, Mark endures indescribable hardships during his captivity. Nevertheless, Mark has remained steadfast in his faith in the Lord, and we continue to work to secure his release.

While celebrity cases frequently grab headlines, the struggles of ordinary Americans like Mark, unjustly imprisoned abroad, often go unnoticed by both the media and the government. That’s why it’s important to keep pushing forward on this issue, not only to secure Mark’s return home but also to shine a necessary spotlight on his case. As Katherine Swidan wrote in her testimony, “We need to show the world that the United States of America does not abandon its citizens and that we fight for their rights and their return no matter the challenges.” My prayers are with Katherine Swidan, Mark Swidan, and all their loved ones – that the Lord would hear our petitions and grant him a safe, secure return home.

You can watch my full testimony HERE.

Another Busy Week in the House

This past week was jam packed with hearings. Check out the summary below!

A Coverup at EcoHealth

We had a recent hearing with the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic which gave me the opportunity to question Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance, a key player in the censorship of the Lab Leak Theory.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar, EcoHealth funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to a shady Chinese lab (known to have insufficient biosecurity protections) to conduct risky gain-of-function research, violating a number of NIH policies along the way. I believe the evidence shows experiments like this paved the way for COVID-19’s spread. We’re now learning more evidence suggesting that NIH officials, including Dr. Fauci, sought to cover up their own role in funding this kind of research – partly by falsely labeling reasonable questions as “conspiracy theories.”

Perhaps worst of all, EcoHealth is still receiving government funding – even though when I questioned Dr. Daszak on whether he would do anything over, he claimed there wasn’t anything he would change. This is ridiculous, and yet another example of where Congress should be using our power of the purse.

You can watch my full questioning HERE.

Fighting Government Censorship of Election Information

Last week, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Jen Easterly, testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, where I’m a member.

I wanted to focus my questioning on free speech issues, specifically calling back to an exchange we had in 2023. When I questioned Director Easterly last year, she testified that CISA does not censor free speech – which is patently false. Specifically in regards to the coordinated effort to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals states that, “CISA was the primary facilitator of the FBI’s interactions with social media platforms and worked in close connection with the FBI to push the platforms to change their moderation policies over hack and leak content.”

As we’ve seen over and over again, the entrenched bureaucrats who run our federal agencies do not abide by the same rules as we do. From the outset, it was clear that the laptop and its contents were authentic, yet nobody has been held accountable for this blatant election interference. As we move forward with FY2025 appropriations, please know that I will be targeting programs and agencies that infringe on our most fundamental rights. This will be an uphill battle, but it is one that must be done.

You can watch my full questioning of Director Easterly HERE.

The Government Should Work for You

During this week’s Oversight Committee hearing, I had the opportunity to question Jason Miller, Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, about the ongoing negative impacts of the COVID-19 policies implemented by the Biden administration. Since 2021, the Biden administration has implemented inefficient telework policies that have exacerbated already dire backlogs at federal agencies. While middle class Americans are running their businesses and expected to show up, government bureaucrats have often been permitted to work from home for no reason. This is unacceptable.

During the first three months of 2023, 17 out of 24 agencies studied were using their buildings at 25% capacity or less. This has real life consequences for families. For example, if you have not received your tax return yet, there is a strong possibility that policies like this are why. Furthermore, the rise in telework has coincided with a surge in cases of misconduct, fraud, and other improper behavior among federal employees.

This is a top priority for me and I will continue pushing back against these harmful policies and seek to streamline the bureaucracy.

You can watch my full questioning HERE .

Prayer Request

Finally, I would like to end this week’s newsletter with a prayer request. This past Thursday was the National Day of Prayer, and next week is National Police Week — both of which could not have come at a more needed time for us in South Texas.

If they are not already in your prayers, please pray for the family of Officer Kyle Hicks, a member of the Corpus Christi Police Department who was recently killed in the line of duty.

May his memory be a blessing — and may we always honor the selfless service of heroes like Officer Hicks. Psalm 34:18

Michael Cloud Member of Congress

Recent Posts

Release: rep. cloud, colleagues increasing legislative transparency with the cost estimates improvement act.

On Monday, Representatives Michael Cloud (R-TX), Rep. Ed Case (D-HI), Dan Meuser (R-PA), Jared Golden (D-ME), and Tom McClintock (R-CA) introduced bipartisan legislation that would help lawmakers address America’s enormous national debt and the associated interest costs in the legislative process.

RELEASE: Rep. Cloud Statement on Procedural Vote Regarding Motion to Vacate

Today, Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) released the following statement regarding his vote in favor of tabling a motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson:

RELEASE: Rep. Cloud Votes No on Bill with Free Speech Concerns

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) released the following statement regarding his NO vote on H.R. 6090, a bill supposed to deal with antisemitism but one that raised significant Constitutional concerns.

U. of C. study shows cops at high risk of misconduct also at elevated risk for off-duty trouble

P olice officers with histories of on-the-job misconduct are also likelier to have reported instances of bad behavior while off-duty, according to a new study published Monday through the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

The study, which examined 10 years of Chicago Police Department data as part of implementing the federal consent decree, found that police misconduct was predictable based on an officer’s history of complaints. It suggested that a relatively simple system of tracking past complaints to prevent future incidents could have a public value of “infinity,” considering the potential to avoid costly lawsuits that result from high-profile incidents of officer misconduct.

Payments to settle lawsuits stemming from allegations of police misconduct routinely cost Chicago taxpayers millions of dollars annually. The City Council in March approved payments totaling more than $57 million to settle three such cases. Between 2021 and 2023, settlement payments totaled more than $220 million.

Historically, CPD officers who work in “Tier 1” districts — those of the CPD’s 22 patrol districts that see the highest levels of violence and other serious felony offenses — are the subjects of more civilian misconduct complaints, especially officers who work in specialized, plainclothes units, though uniformed patrol officers are also the frequent subjects of complaints.

The newly released study also showed that while the officers at highest risk of misconduct make up a small percentage of the force overall, members of that group were at “greatly elevated risk” for on- and off-duty reports of bad behavior.

Researchers found that 1% of officers deemed the highest risk were 6.7 times more likely to receive complaints about on-duty misconduct and 6.2 times more likely to receive complaints off the job, whether about domestic incidents, issues with drugs or alcohol or off-duty altercations.

“It suggested that there might be something going on in that officer’s life or career that is affecting both,” said co-author Gregory Stoddard, a senior research director at the Crime Lab.

As part of the project, Stoddard said researchers led a series of focus groups with police officers of different ranks within the department, focused on “what keeps (them) up at night” and the kinds of bad events they would ideally be able to foresee and prevent.

The officers, Stoddard said, had a range of responses, from off-duty life stress such as aging parents or relationship problems to issues more directly related to work, such as “responding to grisly scenes.”

Whether preceding complaints resulted from officers’ on-duty stress infecting their private lives or vice versa, Stoddard said his team’s findings suggested that treating overall officer well-being may produce a public good.

“If you had an intervention that can help address some of those underlying issues, you might see both improvements to officer wellness as well as increased accountability,” he said.

Chicago Tribune’s Sam Charles contributed.

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