Science / Medicine : Journal Admits Fraud Fears

A major case of scientific fraud has apparently stricken the prestigious journal Science, whose editor has steadfastly maintained that there is little deceit among scientists, the magazine acknowledged last week. In a notification to readers, the weekly scientific journal said it has learned that a landmark research paper on vision, published in its June 26, 1987, issue, allegedly involved scientific fraud.

Daniel Koshland Jr., the editor of Science, said a National Institutes of Health investigative panel notified him two weeks ago that it had concluded that the paper’s lead author, Dr. C. David Bridges, had committed serious wrongdoing.

Bridges, who was with Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine at the time of the research, has denied the allegations and plans to appeal the NIH decision. He is now at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

“I’m completely innocent of this outrageous charge,” Bridges told the Houston Chronicle.

The NIH panel charges that Bridges pilfered ideas from Harvard University researchers after being asked to review their paper for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Bridges is accused of patterning his experiments after the Harvard work and of failing to properly acknowledge that study as the source of his information.