FINDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT Release Date: September 13, 1999 Department of Health and Human Services Notice is hereby given that the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has made a final finding of scientific misconduct in the following case: Karrie Recknor, University of Washington: Based on a report dated January 27, 1999, by the University of Washington, Ms. Recknor\"s admission, and information obtained by ORI during its oversight review, ORI finds that Ms. Karrie Recknor, former Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Psychology, University of Washington, engaged in scientific misconduct arising out of certain biomedical research supported by a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant. Specifically, Ms. Recknor admitted to falsifying electronic mail responses presented to the Principal Investigator as part of a project, \"Prognosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.\" Ms. Recknor was responsible for conducting interviews on the impact of life events for six subjects and for assigning preliminary Brown and Harris\" Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (B&H) scores to each interview. Ms. Recknor was required to send the interview notes and preliminary scores to a collaborator. The collaborator was to reassess the scores and e-mail the corrected scores or an agreement statement back to Ms. Recknor. Ms. Recknor failed to send the interview notes and preliminary scores for these six interviews to the collaborator for evaluation and instead falsified electronic mail responses to indicate that the collaborator\"s evaluation had been conducted. Ms. Recknor entered these scores into the research database for the above-mentioned project. The falsified scores did not appear in any publications. Ms. Recknor has accepted the ORI finding and has entered into a Voluntary Settlement Agreement with ORI in which she has voluntarily agreed, for the two (2) year period beginning August 19, 1999: (1) to exclude herself from serving in any advisory capacity to the Public Health Service (PHS), including but not limited to service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant, and (2) that any institution that submits an application for PHS support for a research project on which her participation is proposed or which uses her in any capacity on PHS supported research, or that submits a report of PHS-funded research in which she is involved, must concurrently submit a plan for supervision of her duties to the funding agency for approval. The supervisory plan must be designed to ensure the scientific integrity of Ms. Recknor\"s research contribution. The institution also must submit a copy of the supervisory plan to ORI. INQUIRIES For further information contact: Acting Director Division of Research Investigations Office of Research Integrity 5515 Security Lane, Suite 700 Rockville, MD 20852 Telephone: (301) 443-5330
