Scientific Fraud: The McBride Case

Scientific fraud has occasionally been reported in Australia. The most recent case involved Dr William McBride, a prominent Sydney obstetrician who became well known in medical research for his part in drawing attention to the teratogenic effects of thalidomide. It is still not clear how much of McBride's later activities were fraud and how much poor quality research. The findings of the Inquiry into the matter (Gibbs et al., 1988) have considerable importance for the conduct of private research organizations, publication procedures of research journals, the role of assistants in research projects, collaboration between laboratories, and methods for inquiring into allegations of malpractice. The present paper is based on the Inquiry report.