Issues that Arise from Falsified Studies

2. If you were in Broockman’s and Kalla’s shoes, would you have handled the situation differently and if so, how and why? What issues does this case raise for people who report misconduct (whistleblowers)?
Looking at the case study of how Brookman and Kalla handled the situation, I think how they reported the misconduct and disproved the data in the article was appropriate and effective. If I were in their shoes, I think I would’ve handled the situation similarly. Brookman and Kalla found specific data to counter the data presented in the LaCour article and conducted studies similar to those described in the article to see how they compare, ultimately finding that it was close to impossible for LaCour to have gotten the responses he did. I think this method was effective because it mirrored the study in the article as closely as possible to see the actual outcome, which helped to the disproving of the article. I think one issue that could arise for future people who report misconduct is that the bar for the amount of “counter-data” desired to adequately disprove a case may have been raised. Before this case, it could’ve taken less disproving data and information to ultimately retract studies, but after this case was published, the standard may have raised, making it more difficult to disprove studies that seem blatantly false

5. What are the authorship issues in this case?
An authorship issue that stands out in this case is the credit Dr. Donald Green took for the article, while he later stated that he did not properly supervise LaCour during his study and did not adequately check his data for fabrication or verification. Despite this lack of supervision, Dr. Green was still a co-author of the article. This is an issue because it seems to show that people can easily put their name on an article and take credit for it, while not having contributed or done their role properly or at all. Hopefully in the future, learning from this case, people will question the roles of people who conduct studies and their authorship for the resulting article.