The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD, Danish acronym UVVU) has partially reversed a December 2013 finding of misconduct against a scientist in Denmark, but has upheld most of its ruling.
Bente Klarlund Pedersen, whose case was tied up with that of Milena Penkowa, another scientist in Denmark found guilty of misconduct, committed misconduct in four of 12 articles examined, not six, the DCSD said in a statement last week.
Here’s the English summary (the DCSD does not name scientists under investigation publicly, but Pedersen has confirmed this is about her):
DCSD have issued a ruling in a case pertaining to an earlier ruling on 18 December 2013, where scientific dishonesty, i.e. research misconduct, was confirmed in six articles on health science. The DCSD reopened the case based on new information.
In the reopened case, the DCSD found the Defendant guilty of scientific dishonesty in 4 of the 12 articles covered by the complaint in the form of:
- Lack of information about biopsy material in 2 articles entailing that the interrelationship between results was concealed from the reader
- Lack of information about biopsy material in 2 articles entailing that a selection of test subjects was concealed from the reader
- Lack of information about biopsy material entailing concealment of the fact that a group of test subjects was subject to a different research protocol than the one described in the article
- Failure to respond to obvious image manipulation in an article
DCSD found that the Defendant had acted intentionally in relation to the lack of information about biopsy material in 3 articles. In addition DCSD found that the Defendant had acted grossly negligently in relation to the lack of information about biopsy material and therefore the fact that a group of test subjects was subject to a different research protocol than the one described in the article. Furthermore DCSD found the Defendant joint responsible for the image manipulation as the Defendant had acted gross negligently as leading author of the article by failing to respond to the image manipulation.
Here’s the entire 100-page report in Danish.
Klarlund Pedersen, who has contested previous findings by the DCSD, told the Danish press that she would fight them in court:
DCSD has chosen to retain some of its accusations against me. I totally disagree with the decision, which will now be taken to court. The case has now entirely legal in nature.