Investigating allegations of research misconduct: the vital need for due process

Commentary: Response from members of the Griffiths inquiry

Editorial: Inquiring into inquiries

"Almost every statement made about the design, conduct, and reporting of the neonatal CNEP trial in the Griffiths report was ill informed, misguided, or factually wrong," concludes a review of its findings in this week's BMJ.

The internal review chaired by Professor Rod Griffiths was set up in February 1999 after several parents alleged that their premature babies had been entered into a controlled trial of a breathing support technique, known as continuous negative extrathoracic pressure (CNEP), without their consent. The resulting report was published in May this year.

Dr Edmund Hey, a retired paediatrician from Newcastle upon Tyne, and Dr Iain Chalmers, director of the UK Cochrane Centre in Oxford, conducted their review on behalf of the Medical Defence Union. In their swingeing critique the authors raise serious doubts about the reliability of the report, the review, and the appropriateness of the ensuing recommendations.

The authors defend the trial's design, which, they claim, the panel had failed to understand. They refute the allegation that no external peer review had been conducted and they accuse the panel of making "an unwarranted slur on the professionalism and skill of all the nurses concerned." They say that a consent document existed among the research records for every child in the study. Assertions made by a small number of parents about events up to 10 years ago went unchecked, say the authors, yet now form the basis for recommending major changes to the governance of clinical research in the NHS.

"We can still agree that there has been a scandal, but suspect that the scandal is what has been done to, not what was done by, the medical and nursing staff in Stoke on Trent."

Responding to the crit
'"/>

Contact: Emma Wilkinson
ewilkinson@bmj.com
44-20-7383-6259
BMJ-British Medical Journal
21-Sep-2000