Daniel BuenoA case of suspected research misconduct that has drawn much attention in the Danish academic community since 2011 has seen a major reversal. In February 2015, a Danish court cleared the physiologist Bente Klarlund Pedersen, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen, of charges of dishonesty. The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD), a government agency that investigates scientific fraud, was ordered to pay $61,000 in related court costs. In 2013, the agency ruled that Pedersen had acted in a “negligent manner” that constituted “scientific dishonesty” when she reused experimental data in a number of articles and failed to detect manipulations of microscope images by a researcher she was overseeing. The High Court of Eastern Denmark, however, has now determined that the scientist did not act dishonestly.
The case resulted in the retraction of three articles published by Pedersen’s team and the issue of a correction to a fourth article. It was proven that she had reused muscle biopsies in multiple papers without indicating that the data had been published previously and that she had conflated the results of two clinical trial groups that had followed different protocols. She was also accused of negligence concerning the manipulation of images by her mentee Milena Penkowa—the scandal that triggered the investigation. Penkowa left the University of Copenhagen in 2010. The accusation prompted Pedersen to resign as the editor of two scientific journals and as an advisor for a biomedical research institution. She admitted that there were problems with some of the articles but always argued that she had not acted in bad faith and that the reuse of muscle biopsy results is considered normal practice among her peers.
Pedersen’s research explores the impact of exercise on muscle physiology and looks for mechanisms that can accelerate muscle recovery. The Danish press often consulted with her when reporting on the benefits of physical exercise.
Pedersen’s lawyer, Eigil Lego Andersen, told the journal Nature that the court’s decision “sends a very strong message” to the DCSD and shows that not all errors or flaws in a research paper can be labeled wrongdoing. “They have to have a clear definition of what is and what is not scientific dishonesty,” he says. Henrik Gunst Andersen, DCSD chair during the investigation, said that the Danish government is working to amend the agency’s regulations and that he feels this legal ruling will be taken into account during the review.
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