Panel Calls Falsification in German Case 'Unprecedented'

摘要

After a 4-month inquiry, a panel of scientists and legal experts asserted last week that two biomedical researchers had apparently manipulated or falsified data "to an unprece'dented extent" irt their research at universrties and at a national research center in Germany from 1988 to 1996. The 12-member commission was headed by Wolfgang Gerok, a retired professor of internal medicine at Freiberg University. The panel said it had so far identified 37 publications that appear to include falsifications or indications of possible data manipulation, mainly involving alterations of digi-tized images such as auto-radiograms. "This is an extremely serious matter," Gerok told Science, "For German science, at least," the extent of the falsifications appears to be unprecedented" in the postwar era.