In 2005 Elizabeth Goodwin, PhD, a geneticist and professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, admitted to manipulating data on a research grant application in order to convince reviewers that her lab was worthy of the money it was requesting. She was turned in by graduate students working at her lab. Just this last week, Dr. Thomas Zdeblick, a surgeon at UW-Madison, was found to have received $34 million from a company called Medtronic because he allowed employees at that company to ghost-write papers with his name on them, which advocated the use of a controversial and ineffective spinal treatment the company was promoting. These papers failed to disclose that the spinal treatment being advocated for had been shown to cause sterility in men. These two cases exemplify a problem in modern scientific research funding: The incentive to cheat is incredibly high.
Office of Strategic Communication