BMJ Group blogs: Liz Wager: Do we need to rethink our approaches to research misconduct and research integrity?

"....Having failed to start a reasonable conversation about research integrity, based on major scandals, we see no point in trying to address so-called “minor” offences. But as Iain Chalmers said at the meeting, “lesser offences,” such as failing to publish research and publishing welcome results more often than disappointing results, harms many more patients than the high profile scandals (since it distorts the evidence on which guidelines and clinical practice are based). While plagiarism may be a nasty symptom of a sick system, it has probably never killed anybody while unreliable guidelines and misguided research undoubtedly have....."