We can all agree — we hope — that fraud is bad, whether it’s in government, sports, or academia. But it can sometimes be easy to forget that fake scientific data can have real consequences for public health.
Perhaps that’s because many biomedical papers retracted for fraud involve early-stage science — bench work in cells — rather than patients, and are published in journals with esoteric names like Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. Whatever the reason, it’s unfortunately instructive when real-world examples arrive to help illustrate the point.
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