The Consequences of a Fraudulent Scientist on His Innocent Coinvestigators

To the Editor. — In their recent citation analysis of articles authored or coauthored by Dr Stephen E. Breuning, Garfield and Welljams-Dorof 1 have misled readers by implying that all of these studies are fraudulent. This misrepresentation is evident in several sections of their article. Their quotations from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Investigative Panel Report 2 that "none of the described studies of psychopharmacologic treatment had been carried out," "only a few of the experimental subjects... were ever studied," and "the complex designs and rigorous methods reported were not employed" erroneously intimate that these statements apply to all of the 20 studies under consideration in their article. In fact, these quotes were drawn from a secondary source 3 that extracted these statements from sections of the NIMH report dealing with three psychopharmacologic treatment studies and with the panel's specific conclusions about Breuning's individual culpability. Other studies that