Just wonderful - from Retraction Watch:
More than $100M worth of research may be tainted by govt lab misconduct
Misconduct by a chemist at a Colorado lab run by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has potentially affected 24 research and assessment projects, supported by $108 million in federal funding, government officials have disclosed.
According to a June 15 statement from the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the USGS, the operator of a mass spectrometer in the Inorganic Section of the Energy Resources Program’s (ERP) Energy Geochemistry Laboratory in Lakewood has been accused of scientific misconduct and manipulating data. The unit is responsible for conducting coal and water quality assessments in projects both in the United States and abroad.
A bit more - the full report is here: SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY INCIDENT AT USGS ENERGY GEOCHEMISTRY LABORATORY (PDF)
This is the second incident of misconduct to affect the laboratory. Although the current report focuses on this incident, it provides some detail about the first:
In 2014, OIG evaluated ERP’s quality control process, issuing the final report (No. CR-EV-GSV-0003-2014) in May 2015. We found that ERP’s system of quality assurance/quality control was insufficient to detect quality-related issues 4 in its science center laboratories. The report detailed two instances in which mass spectrometer operators in the Energy Geochemistry Laboratory’s Inorganic Section had violated established laboratory practices without detection for many years. The initial incident involved scientific misconduct that began in 1996 and continued undiscovered until 2008. The second incident began in 2008 and continued undiscovered until late 2014 … Following discovery of the second incident, ERP management issued a stop work order for the laboratory and began an internal investigation.
An inquiry found that the lab had:
a “chronic pattern of scientific misconduct” and that “data produced by the Inorganic Section were intentionally manipulated by the line-chemist in charge.” The identified issues predominantly affected coal and water quality research and related assessments.
More specifically:
USGS accused the chemist of data manipulation by intentionally changing the results produced by the mass spectrometer. The chemist also failed to preserve the data. Further, the Bureau accused the chemist of failing to operate the mass spectrometer according to established practices, which constituted scientific misconduct. …given the widespread use of USGS data and publications by its many customers, scientific misconduct at the Inorganic Section has serious implications for energy and environmental decisions driven by information developed at the laboratory.
Emphasis mine - the data was manipulated to favor an outcome. Much more at the site. The data that was manipulated dealt with pollution from coal, mercury and uranium - all the environmental hot-buttons. Needless to say, that lab was closed. I hope they raise it to the ground, burn the remains and salt the earth. Pour encourager les autres...
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