Blog post by Gilberto
Leung
When hunting for a topic for
my Dissertation, I went from ‘research ethics’ to ‘research misconduct’ and
eventually cases of medical research fraud that had been treated criminally in
the US. Although there have also been calls for greater criminalization in the
UK, little has been written about how the criminal law may
actually be applied in this context. People were saying we should probably
prosecute researchers such as Wakefield but no one seemed to know or wanted to
know how to go about it. I thought I would examine the knowledge gap.
What I found was that the
Fraud Act 2006 would work very well in dealing with MRF but it casts such a
wide net that many ‘minor’ cases would also be caught. The main issue in front
of me then was about determining the appropriate threshold for prosecution in
something as complex as research fraud. I borrowed the concept of the CPS
policy on assisted suicide and proposed a balance sheet approach. Together with
some amateur work on actus reus and mens rea, I
ended up with a (kind of) legal framework to complement the Fraud Act. In retrospect,
it was a brave/mad move to dive into criminal law just like that but my
supervisor (Professor Graeme Laurie) was extremely helpful and encouraging. Not
sure if the government would listen to me but I am glad that the Dissertation
got a prize and I shall always be grateful for the wonderful learning
experience.
Please, access the article
by following:
View other publications by Gilberto on the
Mason Institute website.