Robert Howarth, editor-in-chief of the journal Limnology & Oceanography and professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology at Cornell University, says any scientific fraud is a serious matter, and the scientific community and scientific journals should have a zero-tolerance policy toward fraud. Howarth also suggests several lines of defense against such fraud.

Howarth says:

“Better lines of defense against fraud include continuing to build a culture in scientific disciplines that is intolerant of fraud and talks openly and regularly about it.

“Such a scientific culture must encourage co-authors to take their responsibilities seriously. Most papers have multiple authors, and all need to feel confident in the reliability and integrity of the work. “The scientific community must continue to rely on quality peer review to catch fraud. This process works extremely well when the editors of a journal are fully versed in the subject area of a paper, and so can assign truly expert peer reviewers, but the process can break down when journals cover extremely broad areas and lack sufficient breadth of expertise amongst their editors.”