A story today of prolific fraud out of UConn. University researcher Dipak K. Das has been accused of falsifying research related to the health benefits of red wine. A three-year investigation has produced a 60,000-page report detailing 145 instances in which he fabricated data.
Das has been awarded loads of money over the years in federal grants for his “research,” most of which was published in obscure journals and was of laughably low quality. Two newly received grants alone were worth $890,000.
This is obviously a depressing waste of taxpayers’ dollars. On the bright side, those readers who imbibe strictly for therapeutic purposes need not despair. Das’s fraud apparently doesn’t negate all the reported health benefits of red wine we’ve been hearing about for years. What it does, rather, is raise the question of accountability in the disbursement of federal research grants. Who in our government was responsible for monitoring the quality of work done under Das’s grants? Were they drinking on the job?
Since standards are so low, and accountability so lacking, I’m thinking I may build a wine cellar in my house and set up my own research lab. Probably start by experimenting on some ’69 Chateaux Margaux. Can I have $890,000 please?
My gut feeling is that Deepak Dases are a dime a dozen. A great "shovel-ready" project would be to dig through the hundreds of millions of federal dollars disbursed every year for research and ascertain the merits of those research projects. I suspect the results would blow the top off the entire federal grants for academic research game.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere is an amazing amount if waste in research. But if funding is cut by, oh, let's say a third, the scientists would: A) Whine a lot; and B) not cut the waste. I know one PI who buys THE latest Apple hardware and software and charges it to the grant. Reference books, which are indeed important are purchased with grant money despite the fact that the very same books can be checked out of the library. One PI bought very expensive software for every member of his lab despite the fact that only a few people would use it and that it would be MUCH cheaper to have it loaded on one centrally located shared computer. Each pI insist upon having his/her own $500,000 piece of equipment despite the fact that several of them could share it. ("But what if I need to use it and another PI is using it?" Most of the equipment that could be shared sees less than one hour of use per day.... It's just everyone wants to use things between the hours of 1 and 3 pm. No one wants to have to get up at 6 am to go into the lab...) I worked for a lab for many years and the amount of waste I saw was unbelievable. If grants were cut by a third, the same work could be done with the same number of people, but PI's wouldn't get their toys paid for...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat is what happens when you're allowed to spend other people's money with no accountability mechanisms in place. It's a joke. But I'm not laughing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA few years back at UMass, there was a asbestos abatement guy arrested for selling some of this stuff on E-Bay -- and the thing that got to me was that no one knew it was missing until someone just happened to notice some of his toys posted for sale.
But there is a larger issue here -- do not forget the institutional overhead charges -- when you add it all up, something like 55% of a grant goes directly to the institution itself for various overhead charges. And now critical an eye do you think that any institution is going to look at what the 45% is spent for when it is getting to spend the 55%?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"A special review board headed by Dr. Kent Morest of the University of Connecticut has now produced a 60,000-page report, which has been forwarded to the Office of Research Integrity..."
W H A T ?!?!?! Sixty THOUSAND pages????
That is a 600 pound report -- a quarter TON is only 500 lbs -- we are talking the weight of *five* female undergrads (120 lb each) or three 6' male undergrads (200 lb each) - a SIX HUNDRED POUND REPORT?!?!
This is how I get the 600 lbs: Standard 20 lb office paper is 5 pounds per ream. 500 sheets per ream, 10 reams per case (50 lb net) and 12 cases of paper is thus 600 lbs. Net -- the boxes of the paper or the binding of the report adding more weight to this. And twelve cases of paper is more than most office managers will tolerate in the supply room More than will *fit* into more than a few supply rooms.
600 pages is a thick doctoral dissertation. 6,000 would be ten -- 60,000 would be a HUNDRED doctoral dissertations. Perhaps it legitimately needs to be that long, but exactly whom do they think is going to sit down and read the report in its entirety?
Maybe the report needs to be 60,000 pages long -- I could see six thousand, but sixty?
Or is perhaps *this* the real problem in academia, perhaps the reason why standards and accountability is so low is because human beings simply can't comprehend 600 lb reports -- most would have a hard time lugging it into their offices... We are talking about something so massive that hard copy would not fit into most cars -- and with a 200 lb driver, would put more than a few over its registered GVW as well...
Again, maybe this is legitimate, maybe they did really need to fill 60,000 pages; but I still keep thinking that 50,000 pages of the cheapest grade of copier paper IS A QUARTER TON of paper, and we are talking 100 lbs beyond that....
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHopefully, that was a typo. But given the endless supply of hot methane on campus...
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"A special review board headed by Dr. Kent Morest of the University of Connecticut has now produced a 60,000-page report, which has been forwarded to the Office of Research Integrity..."
W H A T ?!?!?! Sixty THOUSAND pages????
That is a 600 pound report -- a quarter TON is only 500 lbs -- we are talking the weight of *five* female undergrads (120 lb each) or three 6' male undergrads (200 lb each) - a SIX HUNDRED POUND REPORT?!?!
This is how I get the 600 lbs: Standard 20 lb office paper is 5 pounds per ream. 500 sheets per ream, 10 reams per case (50 lb net) and 12 cases of paper is thus 600 lbs. Net -- the boxes of the paper or the binding of the report adding more weight to this. And twelve cases of paper is more than most office managers will tolerate in the supply room More than will *fit* into more than a few supply rooms.
600 pages is a thick doctoral dissertation. 6,000 would be ten -- 60,000 would be a HUNDRED doctoral dissertations. Perhaps it legitimately needs to be that long, but exactly whom do they think is going to sit down and read the report in its entirety?
Maybe the report needs to be 60,000 pages long -- I could see six thousand, but sixty?
Or is perhaps *this* the real problem in academia, perhaps the reason why standards and accountability is so low is because human beings simply can't comprehend 600 lb reports -- most would have a hard time lugging it into their offices... We are talking about something so massive that hard copy would not fit into most cars -- and with a 200 lb driver, would put more than a few over its registered GVW as well...
Again, maybe this is legitimate, maybe they did really need to fill 60,000 pages; but I still keep thinking that 50,000 pages of the cheapest grade of copier paper IS A QUARTER TON of paper, and we are talking 100 lbs beyond that....
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot the 69's-they'll be terrible-the 66's or the 70's
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