Office of Research Integrity: Thieves Investigating Their Theft

The major achievment of my web publication "Statistics of Scientific Fraud" --  the most direct and objective (to-date) estimation of the rate of misconduct in modern (bio)science, or at least, demonstration of feasibility of finding such estimate -- was stolen recently by Office of Research Integrity. In November 2000, ORI conducted a conference to announce a grants program boosting research on exactly this same theme -- i.e. obtaining some better estimate for exactly this same unknown. Predictably, without a single reference to this my work despite my rather numerous (always unpleasant) contacts with this organization concerning my work. Very cunningly, I have interpreted this trifling idea theft as financial fraud and have blown a number of whistles to american officials...
 

In more details, in 1995-2000 I had several contacts with ORI concerning various technical deatails of my work. Finally, in March 2000 I had a strange correspondence with Alan R.Price  which apparently should be interpreted as if ORI has no further interest to this my work.
Yet soon afterwards, in November 2000 ORI announced a grants program with a primary objective PRECISELY coinciding
with the theme of my work while obviously pretending that my work does not exist or they know nothing about it.

It is necessary to define more rigorously what I mean by PRECISE coincidence between my work and the theme of ORI conference. It is simple.

The background report of ORI conference written by Dr.Steneck describes two sharply divided "schools" of estimating the rate of sci. misconduct.
N.Steneck has written a rather interesting overview of publications on scientific fraud which should be recommended for reading at the first place. That is I really had found some new and useful information for myself! At least,  I have found out the position of my work relatively to the rest of research on sci.fraud. And, definitely, thanks to this report I started to think about this my work very MUCH better. (Actually, I am not a too serious expert on literarure in this field; I just don't know any other comparable review). Yet, it should be kept in mind that it is a fraudulent overview serving some ideological interests which are not clear. The report ignores my work; it also ignores very important and very interesting work by prof.Bloomberg of Univ.Virginia which made appearance in Nature; I also heard note about it on BBC -- so it is VERY difficult to believe that ORI knew nothing about works by Bloomberg. I also heard about omissions of some important early works on scientific fraud. I think, these are too serious and INTENTIONAL faults.
First school ("rare" according to ORI terminology) presents ridiculously low estimates by dividing the cases of sci.misconduct confirmed by federal government by the total number of researchers. Such estimates may be taken seriously only if allowing that there is a sure around-100% probability that every scientist commiting fraud is caught by competent organisation. Obviously, it is not true and this probability is a perfectly unknown value. Therefore, actually, these low estimates are just meaningless rhetoric trick of expressing one unknown through another equally unknown value. This my description of "first school" is  different from its more polite coverage in ORI report. Yet the overall value judgements is approximately the same.

The second school ("top of iceberg" school) yielding estimates of 10% or more is based mostly on works performed on specials sets of data where it really seems possible to identify nearly 100% of fraudsters. I like best the approach (by Prof.Bloomberg of Univ.Virginia) on estimating amount of students' works copied from Web resources  and works on checking the citation errors (it is described in the background report - p.8).
Unfortunately, students are not researchers as well as distorting references is not a sufficient pretext to talk about fraud. So these approaches are listed by ORI among "other research practices" being of indirect relevance to estimating of research misconduct.

So, both "schools" have serious troubles with estimates they propose. And ORI announces the objective to receive some better estimates. Alas, that is exactly what I have proposed in my work. I have already found the estimates which ORI is now looking for. That  is, the estimates lacking the drawbacks described above.  It is easy to see that my approach belongs to the "second school" and is nearly identical to that based on citation errors. With one important difference that drawing fabricated data graphs is obviously within the limits of any definition of scientific fraud.

Thus, again, the problem which ORI had put forward at the conference was already solved by me; and I had imparted this information to ORI long before the conference was held.

I denote this behaviour as plagiarism. That is, according to Webster "appropriating and putting forth as one's own the ideas, language or designs of another". Yet, obviously, there is no copyright conflict in this story (I am not sorry about it at all as I have no money to pay US lawyers). So at any rate I can't do anything more than just expressing my displeasure from such behaviour on the base of complaining about plagiarism.

Yet this case looks more promising from another point of view. ORI have collected public money for solving problem which has been already solved by me. Of course, I have not any sort of monopoly on this field of research. I can well believe that ORI may wish to have different estimates more compatible with its bureaucratic interests. It may also wish this estimates to be received by researchers of other race and to be based on other methods. All this does not constitute anything more than just "political censorship" or "racial segregation".  Perhaps, it is unethical and even (hypothetically) it is punishable by current laws. But, I'm afraid, the supreme body in USA that should investigate such things is ORI itself.
Yet, what I mean is that concealing information about my work is a serious financial infringement. It's like collecting money for digging Panama channel concealing the fact that it was already built by somebody else. It's FRAUD!

This interpretation looks more attractive as with it I am acting actually as a whistlblower (for free!!) rather than a complainant. So, I've blown a number of whistles to american officials.  Below is my posting  to SCIFRAUD maillists devoted to the results.

Office of Research Integrity: Thieves Investigating Their Thievery

I have updated my year-old fraud allegations against ORI
(see my posting to SCIFRAUD of Dec.29 2000 or visit my site at:
http://www.orc.ru/~yur77/orifraud.htm). In brief, I argued
that ORI committed financial fraud requesting public money
to solve the problem which was already solved earlier by me
(as long as ORI new everything about my work).

The update describes responses to my allegations that I received
from several officials.
I think, it is rather interesting. I never could think
that american academic bureaucracy is able to do such extravagant
tricks. Then, it appears that I have now sufficient pretext to make
an assertion who personally was the author of plagiarizing
my work by ORI.

----------

First of all, of course I knew that protecting my intellectual property
was not the first priority of american government. So, it seems to be in
the nature of things that I've got no responses at all to my letters
concerning this case from:
Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services;
Office of Inspector General, DHHS;
Congressional Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, Committee on Commerce;
and from one individual congressmen.

I was a good deal surprised that academic bureaucracy responded MUCH
better. I contacted Science editorial office,  NSF Inspector General and
somebody in AAAS (the last two organizations financially participated in
organizing the ORI conference). And I've got responses from ALL THREE!
That is, I didn't find an atom of sense in those responses -- they were
just trivial bureaucratic variations on the theme that this is not their
jurisdiction (though, perhaps, it is worth to commend correspondence from NSF
office which demonstrated some outstanding obscenity in breacing the common
rules of reasoning).
Yet the contrast with the dead silence of lay world bureaucracy is rather
impressive (and it seems statistically conclusive!). I don't want to think that
this effect takes place because academic bureaucrats are better bustards
than their civil colleagues.  In my opinion, the explanation is that there is
just too much talking about scientific fraud in academic community today,
and that is why bureaucracy here slightly overreacts to such things.

Nevertheless, the only informative letter concerning this case came from
non-scientific part of world. It is quoted below verbatim:

> Sep 26, 2001
>
> Dear Mr.Yuryev
>
> This responds to your letter dated June 13, 2001, to the Attorney General
> concerning your complaint of fraudulent conduct committed by the U.S.
> Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Research Integrity
> (HHS-ORI). We apologize for not responding to your inquiry sooner,
> but it was only recently forwarded to this office.
>
> We note that on January 1, 2001, you e-mailed the U.S.Health and Human
> Services, Division of Investigative Oversight (HHS-DIO). Dr. Alan R.Price,
> Director of the HHS-DIO, has informed our office that, at this present
> time, there does not appear to be any "plagiarism" or "scientific
> misconduct". In addition, Dr.Price indicated that this is still an
> ongoing investigation and that a final decision on this case will be made
> in the near future. We hope this information is helpful to you.

> Accordingly, this office does not contemplate any further action.

> Sincerely,
> William P.Sellers IV
> Special Counsel for Administration
> Fraud Section

Needless to say that Dr.Alan R.Price himself did not inform me about his
investigation nor that I still know nothing about whether this investigation
approached today any "final decision". And this is scarcely odd because
Dr.Alan.R.Price was personally involved in the story of stealing my work and
this idea was clearly expressed in my letter to Attorney General. So I am slightly
impressed by such cautious dealing with my information by Dept.of Justice.
I have sent two e-mail (to Fraud Section of Dept.Justice) reporting conflict
of interest situation yet there was no further response.

Naturally, I can't take seriously an idea that Dr.Price conducted some REAL
investigation against ORI. (Actually, I received a strange letter from ORI that
make ground for a funny suggestion what sort of IMITATION of investigation has
been applied in this case -- read further).
And, therefore, in my humble opinion, the letter from Dept. of Justice quoted
above definitely points to Dr. Alan R.Price as to the person performing the
cover up of ORI's theft.

It prompted me to look more closely at my previous correspondence with
Dr.Alan.R.Price (http://www.orc.ru/~yur77/orifraud_aprice.htm) to see if I can
say something more about Dr.Price' participation in stealing my work.
Apparently, I can -- I can deduce that the most probable part of Mr.Price
in this story is that he is the actual author of this theft.

To prove it, I will try further to built something like "preponderence of evidence"
Of course, I do not pretend that these evidences are "incontrovertible" or
they lead to a conclusion lying "beyond any reasonable doubt".
I prefer to see this my exercise as something like solving an ill-posed
inverse mathematical problem when it is neccessary to estimate some object's
parameter through a number of noisy and indirect measurements.
For example, computer tomography when a number of X-ray photographs taken
from different angles provide a  picture of the cross-section of the body
revealing an information which is hardly seen on every photograph taken
separately. Yet, mutual compatibility of small bits of cross-sectional
information enclosed in every photograph makes possible to filter out
this information and to see a clear final picture.
Fortunately, I used to solve such problems some time ago.

1. Mr. Price signed his letters in March 2000 as: "Acting Director,
Division of Research Investigations, Office of Research Integrity".
DRI seems to be exactly the department where people receive their
salaries for reporting new methods  of detecting scientific fraud
(like that of mine). So, it appears that its director really might have
personal interest in stealing my work.

2. In a letter of 6 March (http://www.orc.ru/~yur77/orifraud_aprice.htm#let2)
Dr. Price requested complete information about my work with a rather
obscure pretext. I even posted to SCIFRAUD a note ("Re: ORI fraud laundry",
13 Mar 2000) requesting help in understanding what Dr.Price
actually wanted from me. Then I thought that it was a hesitant preliminary
invitation to send an abstract to ORI conference. Today I am inclined to think
that Dr.Price needed more information to see if my work maiy be stealed with
impunity. I even may guess that first of all he needed confirmation that I have
nothing but Web publications on this theme -- in a personal e-mail N.Steneck
(author of ORI conference background report) also made some hint that
Web publications don't signify and may be plagiarized.

3. In my letter of 8 March (http://www.orc.ru/~yur77/orifraud_aprice.htm#let3)
I asked Dr.Price what he is going to do with my work. Yet, Dr.Price seems
to be confused by this simple question and his response came rather absurd:
> If you are serious about wanting to understand the "intentions" of
> the Office of Research Integrity and its mission, please read all of
> the ORI Internet site materials, especially each year's Annual Reports
Of course, Dr.Price could not answer that he is going to steal my work :)

4. I still don't know what was the meaning of sending to me simultaneously
two mutually contradicting letters by Dr.Price on 3 and 6 March 2000.
Yet this puzzling trick demonstrates that Dr.Price is capable of very
sophisticated bureucratic techiques. (That is, I mean that this whole
story had to pe planned by rather ingenious person).

5. (I like this my argument) Dr. Price is an expert in theft of ideas!
In June 1993 he was an organizer of "Conference on Plagiarism and Theft of Ideas".
(see http://ori.dhhs.gov/html/programs/confonplagiarism.asp)

6. And this is again about ingenuity of Dr.Price. I have received a surprising
letter from ORI -- see http://www.orc.ru/~yur77/orifraud_ori.htm
Apparently, instead of investigating his own theft (which was promised by Dr.Price
to the Dept. of Justice -- see letter quoted above), Dr.Price initiated
an absolutely irrelevant investigation under the same reference number based on
another case described in my work. That is, his investigation is also
based on my work, it also deals with Scatchard plots, and it also lies
within the jurisdictin of ORI. All keywords coincide and who wuld read
the text! Bravo, Dr.Price.

Note also that in a letter from Dept.of Justice ORI and DIO look as
independent departments of HHS (HHS-ORI and HHS-DIO) while in the letter
from ORI the DIO turnes out to be just a division of ORI. (It is simple trick,
not relevant to Dr.Price ingenuity)

> 13 January, 2003
>
>  To: H. Marshall Jarrett, Counsel
>  Office of Professional Responsibility
>  20 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Suite 5100
>  Washington, D.C. 20530
>
> Two years ago I've accused Office of Res.Integrity in fraud and stealing
> ideas of my work (for more details see http://www.orc.ru/~yur77/orifraud.htm)
>
> My allegations sent to several "fraud-fighting" institutions were generally
> ignored. The most interesting subset of events followed my letter on this subject
> to Dept. of Justice:
>
> My letter was redirected for investigation to Alan Price,
> Director of Div. of Res. Investigation of ORI, whose name was explicitly
> mentioned in my letter as a probable participant of stealing my work.
> As I could guess from a  message received later from ORI
> (see http://www.orc.ru/~yur77/orifraud_ori.htm),
> Dr.A.Price initiated under the reference number definitely pointing to my
> letter of allegations against ORI an absolutely irrelevant investigation
> based on my 4-years-earlier contacts with ORI.
> (he-he I'll eat my hat if reference "Re: ORI 2001-01" does not point to my
> letter of 1 January 2001 ;)
>
> On May 13, 2002 I posted to SCIFRAUD a message
> (http://www.orc.ru/~yur77/orifraud.htm)
> describing this and several other extravagant tricks of Dr.Alan Price.
> I've also sent information on it to Dept.of Justice with registered
> snail mail. Yet there were no further response.
>
> So I just need some final confirmation that my allegations
> were ignored. As it is clear from the address field of this message
> I cross post it to Dept. of Justice and several other organizations:
>
> Department of Health and Human Services;
> Congressional Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, Committee on Commerce;
> Some officials from NSF and AAAS