"Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Agrees to Pay $15M to Settle Fraud Allegations Related to Scientific Research Grants"

From a Justice Department press release two weeks ago (I learned about the case just today from the excellent Science Fictions podcast [Tom Chivers & Stuart Ritchie] [formerly The Studies Show], one of the few podcasts to which I pay to subscribe):

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc. (Dana-Farber) has agreed to pay $15,000,000 to resolve allegations that, between 2014 and 2024, it violated the False Claims Act by making materially false statements and certifications related to National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants….

As part of the settlement, Dana-Farber admitted that its researchers used funds from six NIH grants to conduct research that resulted in 14 publications in scientific journals containing misrepresented and/or duplicated images and data. The publications reused images to represent different experimental conditions; duplicated images to represent different testing conditions, mice, and/or timepoints; or rotated, magnified, or stretched images. Further, Dana-Farber admitted that a supervising researcher failed to exercise sufficient oversight over these researchers, and that Dana-Farber spent funds from those six NIH grants that were unallowable.

As part of the settlement, Dana-Farber also admitted that another researcher received four NIH grants after submitting grant applications that discussed a journal article authored by the researcher but did not disclose that certain images and data in that article were misrepresented and/or duplicated. The United States contends that Dana-Farber caused the submission of false claims to NIH by falsely certifying compliance with grant terms and conditions, spending grant funds on unallowable expenses, and obtaining grants through false and misleading statements.

Dana-Farber cooperated with the government in this matter and received credit under the Department's guidelines for taking disclosure, cooperation, and remediation into account in False Claims Act cases. Among other actions, Dana-Farber summarized voluminous materials relevant to the government's investigation, voluntarily disclosed additional allegations of research misconduct relevant to the government's investigation, voluntarily produced materials without a subpoena, sought to resolve this matter expeditiously, accepted responsibility for its conduct, and implemented remedial measures.

The civil settlement includes the resolution of claims brought under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act by Sholto David. Under those provisions, a private party can file an action on behalf of the United States and receive a portion of any recovery. David will receive $2,625,000 under today's settlement….

You can see the Settlement Agreement for more details, including a list of the 14 potentially affected publications and their authors.

Comments

[Longtobefree]

And, of course, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc. is permanently barred from receiving any federal money of any kind in the future?

[Eugene Volokh]

Let me ask you this: Say a police department has a couple of police officers who are found to have violated the law (e.g., perjures himself in a trial). Say there is evidence that police officials failed to exercise sufficient oversight over the officers. Say these were a few of the many officers in the department, and that there's no sign of a pervasive, systemic problem, though there's no doubt that there was criminal misconduct by the officers.

Should the state cut off all funds to the police department? Require the city to contract with the sheriff's office instead, or perhaps with a neighboring city? Or should the state take the view that the department is still on balance providing a valuable public service, and that the public shouldn't be deprived of the benefits of that service just because there was some misconduct within the department?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

That's not a very good analogy. Dana-Farber doesn't have a monopoly, unlike police departments. Their miscreants don't get to retire early with nice fat taxpayer pensions.

There's also no indication of what happened to the Dana-Farber officials who facilitated this fraud.

Among other actions, Dana-Farber summarized voluminous materials relevant to the government's investigation, voluntarily disclosed additional allegations of research misconduct relevant to the government's investigation, voluntarily produced materials without a subpoena, sought to resolve this matter expeditiously, accepted responsibility for its conduct, and implemented remedial measures.

Did anyone actually get fired, fined, barred from receiving any further funding, or otherwise punished? I have other thoughts regarding why they "sought to resolve this matter expeditiously".

A police department has lots of supposed-good cops who stood by and let the bad cops do bad and illegal things. Do those not-so-good cops get fired and barred from ever being a cop again? Does the police chief and supervising cops get to retire early with nice fat pensions?

[ReaderY]

You clearly don’t understand how scientific research works. Scientific research is not initiated by executives. It is initiated by individual researchers, who are the ones applying for grants. Dana-Farber as an institution was charged with not doing enough to identify and stop the fraud, not with itself actively pursuing it.

As is often the case with people who hate others for their own reasons and blindly attribute all sorts of nastiness to them with no evidence, you know nothing at all about the people you hate.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Who hires those researchers? -- Executives.
Who supervises those researchers? -- Executives.
Who sets the tone of the workplace? -- Executives.
Who should have some idea what those researchers are doing? -- Executives.

If you are actually dumb enough to think the researchers run the place and hire themselves, you are the ignorant naive asshole.

[ReaderY]

Talk about executive megalomania! Have you so bought into the executive-grandiosity focused business culture that you can’t even imagine a place where people who aren’t executives have brains and are able to take initiative?

Science and its cuture are completely foreign to you.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

I see you didn't answer my question. Apparently you DO think research institutions are run by the inmates.

Let's turn that around. Suppose the inmates do run the place. Then why does the place have any executives? Are they just decorative?

[John F. Carr]

Is that a legal argument or a policy argument?

As a matter of policy, a credible threat of punishment for police misconduct would encourage police departments to reform. If Boeing had been convicted other contractors would think twice. But Boeing is too big to fail. Now Lockheed-Martin executives know their company is too.

As a matter of law, one bad apple can get a company disbarred. A corporation can be held liable for a crime committed by an employee in the course of business. A corporation can be criminally convicted when employees collectively, for failure of process or oversight, commit a crime although no person in the corporation had criminal intent.

[Eugene Volokh]

I think all of this is, at this point, a policy argument. There's no constitutional problem with a statutory rule that says "if any of your employees commit fraud using federal funds, you're permanently barred from getting such funds." Whether this such a permanent bar is legally authorized under current law is a matter of the statutory details and any relevant regulations, which I take it no-one in this conversation is up on.

I took Longtobefree's claim to be a policy argument: The government should permanently bar the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, whatever its general merits as a cancer research establishment might be, from getting any federal funds for anything because of this misconduct by its employees (and poor oversight by managers). That strikes me as an unsound policy.

[Commenter_XY]

The government should permanently bar the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, whatever its general merits as a cancer research establishment might be, from getting any federal funds for anything because of this misconduct by its employees (and poor oversight by managers). That strikes me as an unsound policy.

Is it, though, Professor Volokh? If an institution like Dana-Fraber put out fraudulent research, what else might there be? Do we even know the impact of what those specific publications were. Did the fraudulent papers address patient treatment (PTN Tx)? Was PTN Tx negatively influenced by the fraudulent publications? If so, that seems very, very serious. An institutional 'death penalty' could be warranted in that case. We don't really know how many people and institutions were affected by those fraudulent publications.

The Trump Admin seems to have taken the position of: here is the penalty, go and sin no more.

[ReaderY]

An employee at Apple or Microsoft embezzles a few thousand dollars when a federal contract is involved.

Disband Apple or Microsoft Corporation? Bar federal use of any of its products?

Wouldn’t the policy argument be the same? If one employee of many thousands commits a crime, who knows what else might be going on? It’s not like they provide anything of any particular value. Surely nobody would even notice if one day they were gone and all their products simply disappeared.

[jay.tee]

Unless I’m misunderstanding his argument, Longtobefree (the OP) wasn’t arguing corporate death penalty or banning products.

Just cut off the flow of federal funds.

[ReaderY]

Is that really a “just” here? Cutting off the flow of federal funds means the products stop.

[jay.tee]

Only federally funded products stop. In healthcare / pharma, industry funds a significant amount of research as do private foundations.

So yes, while it might significantly impact DFCI, they have other funding sources they can accept or pursue.

A time-bound federal funding ban seems more appropriate than something permanent though.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

That's not how the funding bills work. They allocate $X billion dollars. If one shaky institution is barred from receiving funds, some other institution will get them.

You probably think bankruptcy puts people out of work too, that they will never be employed again.

Your business sense is pretty warped.

[jay.tee]

Not sure who you’re responding to, but research grants aren’t typically funded directly by legislative bills. As in, Congress doesn’t pass bills to fund specific research studies. Rather, it allocates research funds for specific agencies (CDC, NIH, etc.) which then in turn award and disburse those funds.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

I was responding to ReaderY, who apparently thinks certain businesses and occupations are immune to reality and doesn't understand the funding process that you describe. It's the same with bankruptcy; too many people think bankruptcy means everything just vanishes -- poof! -- and is no more, while the reality is that those resources -- workers, equipment, buildings, even investors -- go on to other businesses.

[David Nieporent]

As a matter of law, one bad apple can get a company disbarred.

Depends, but sometimes, yes. (Except you meant debarred, not disbarred.) But as a matter of policy, that rarely happens because of the collateral damage.

[StephenM]

This is one of the few things this administrtion has done I agree with. As retired scientist there is too much research fraud and the Universities etc try to sweep it under the carpet. Even better, stop the institution applying for grants for year if it can be shown that they did not investigate properly.

[Drewski]

If it makes you feel any better, this was a qui tam action initially. Which is to say, the federal government refused to act on the whisleblower's information until he personally filed suit on its behalf. The public investigation was started largely by the media, primarily the New York Times and Boston Globe, which prompted an internal investigation. The government swooped in to take the win after the hard work was done.

[jay.tee]

Is the whistleblower entitled to a portion of the settlement per the FCA?

[Joe_dallas]

StephenM 20 hours ago
"As retired scientist there is too much research fraud and the Universities etc try to sweep it under the carpet."

While I am only a layman, quite a bit of scientific studies are easily recognizable as exceptionally weak and agenda driven advocacy and not quality research. That was especially evident with much of the covid research. The only astonishing thing is why otherwise educated individuals would place so much credibility on those studies.

[David Nieporent]

While I am only a layman,

Wow, an unexpected admission of humility and realization of his limitations by bookkeeper_joe!

quite a bit of scientific studies are easily recognizable as exceptionally weak and agenda driven advocacy and not quality research. That was especially evident with much of the covid research. The only astonishing thing is why otherwise educated individuals would place so much credibility on those studies.

Whoops. Nope. It's gone. Didn't even last a whole sentence.

[Krayt]

I hope those fines go to other scientific research, and are not inhaled by general piggy overspending.

That is an equally-sized crime as the fraud was: both sins against disease and death, and the people who struggle to live, and live minisculely fractionally shorter lives because of both disreputable efforts.

[CindyF]

The main research goal of those receiving university scientific research grants is to keep the grants coming year after year. If a grant is stopped it is due to racism and biases against BIPOC and marginalized communities.

Faking the studies or inserting falsified information in research results is perfectly acceptable based on diversity, inclusion, and equity metrics and shouldn't be labeled research misconduct. The whistle-blower should be sent to reeducation classes where he can complete equity modules until HR is satisfied with the results.

[Sarcastr0]

DEI is whatever angry conservatives want it to be.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

DEI is not whatever racist wokies don't want it to be.

[jay.tee]

I’m surprised you have the gall to show your face in this thread, Sarcastr0. After all, it’s just one more example of you and your ilk destroying the legitimacy of scientific research: outcomes that are distorted for ideological reasons, outright falsified, or undisclosed due to “incorrect” results. Even when “legitimate,” studies are rarely reproducible. Billions are wasted or bilked. People die.

For all you accuse the Trump admin, you and your ilk beat them to it.

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastr0 4 hours ago
"DEI is whatever angry conservatives want it to be."

Continuing to defend a racists policy gets old

[ReaderY]

I suppose it must be similarly your position that the main goal of firefighters is to encourage fires to start, so they can ensure the flow of fire-fighting funds year after year.

Part of Tolkien’s genius was to recognize that a fundsmental characteristic of profoundly selfish and self-centered people is an inability to imagine the possibility of any other kind of motivation in any one else. They don’t just assume everyone else is like them; they cannot conceive of any other possibility. As Tolien’s Gandalf famously explained, this characteristic can give rise to an exploitable strategic weakness. People who cannot imagine a possibility cannot prepare for or defend against it, and hence are vulnerable to being taken by surprise.

[jay.tee]

I suppose it must be similarly your position that the main goal of firefighters is to encourage fires to start, so they can ensure the flow of fire-fighting funds year after year.

The first sentence of her argument isn’t similar to that at all, if I’m reading it correctly (I’m not addressing anything beyond that first sentence).

Research orgs must continually fund the teams and infrastructure they create. It creates a fine, if not indiscernible, line between main research goal of those receiving university scientific research grants is to keep the grants coming year after year versus actually performing critical medical research.

[vaadu]

Science is no different than politics, business or sports. Power, money or status inevitably leads to corruption.

In sports if a team or player gets caught cheating they get a fine and suspension. Same should happen here. Multiple infractions should be a lifetime ban.

[David Nieporent]

In sports if a team or player gets caught cheating they get a fine and suspension.

Or they get a 5-yard penalty. Not every offense one commits is a first degree felony.

[SRG2]

Perhaps someone could draw a summary of the case in crayon and show it to Trump so he might get an idea about what the False Claims Act is really about.

[Milesthatsme]

There is a spectrum of scientific misconduct. If I’m reading these allegations correctly, they are minor (almost trivial), with no substantive or willful misrepresentation of findings. A $15M settlement in such a case looks like a shakedown, especially in an environment where such shakedowns are increasingly common.

[ReaderY]

It doesn’t strike me as a trivial violation. It says that images alleged to have been taken inder different experimental conditions were in fact the same image. This means that whoever did the research didn’t actually perform all the imaging that was supposed to have been doone, but simply performed a portion of it and used duplicates for the rest. Since different experimental conditions result in variation in outcomes but the same images won’t vary, the results will look sharper (more signal and less noise) and the outcome clearer and more definitive than they would have been the case if real images, whoch woild have generated more noise, had been used. With real images, noise might have drowned out the signal and the results might have been inconclusive. That means any conclusive results published might have been a result of fraud and can’t be relied on.

That strikes me as a misrepresentation of the outcome.

By way of analogy, if I get a grant to perform an experiment in 500 patients but include only 10 real patients and duplicate their data for the other 490, representing the data as the results of a 500 patient definitive experiment rather than a 10 patient preliminary one would definitely be a misrepresentation.

[Commenter_XY]

Agree, this was not a trivial violation.