public policy

"Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay" (NYTimes, 8 June 2008) touches on enough hot button issues that a deeper problem may get lost in the arguments about the specifics of the particular case at hand. Is bipolor disorder over diagnosed and over medicated in children? Perhaps. Have Harvard scientists violated federal policies and/or university policies designed to prevent confict of interest from impacting research findings? Perhaps. Does Iowa Senator Grasslie have some hidden agenda in publicizing this matter as he has? Perhaps.

What's important to keep in mind, though, as these and related issues are argued about is that this particular case is not at all a special one

This paper was written by a student for a senior seminar on Science in Society at Bryn Mawr College. It's made available, with the student's permission, as a contribution to ongoing discussion of issues at the interface between science and the wider society of which it is a part.

It's All the Little Things:
How Misdemeanors in Scientific Misconduct are as Bad as Fabrication and Falsification

Elena Plionis
December 2007