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  • Science Has a Major Fraud Problem. Here’s Why Government Funding Is the Likely Culprit

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    President Biden’s 2024 budget includes over $210 billion directed toward federal research and development, an approximately $9 billion increase from 2023 funding. That might not sound particularly bad—after all, who doesn’t like science and innovation?

    But, although seemingly noble, the billions pumped into the US government’s National Science Foundation don’t always translate into finding cures for debilitating diseases, or developing groundbreaking technologies.

    In recent years, although technology and peer-review techniques have become more widespread, fraud has remained a consistent issue. The problem has gotten so out of hand that world-class researchers and medical ethics analysts believe the public should be aware of the widespread inaccuracies plaguing medicine.

    Dr. Richard Smith, the former editor-in-chief of the BMJ and cofounder of the Committee on Medical Ethics (COPE), details,

    Health professionals and journal editors reading the results of a clinical trial assume that the trial happened and that the results were honestly reported. But about 20% of the time, said Ben Mol, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Monash Health, they would be wrong. As I’ve been concerned about research fraud for 40 years, I wasn’t as surprised as many would be by this figure, but it led me to think that the time may have come to stop assuming that research actually happened and is honestly reported, and assume that the research is fraudulent until there is some evidence to support it having happened and been honestly reported.

    Independent analysis done by J. B. Carlisle confirms Dr. Smith’s suspicions. As Carlisle analyzed dozens of government-funded control trials, he found a staggering 44% contained false data. These findings are swept under the rug by most mainstream news outlets, which is a problem in itself. If government-funded research produces such sloppy results, the taxpayers funding it at least deserve to know the outcomes of the experiments they paid for.

    To understand why government-funded research tends to be so inaccurate, it’s crucial to look at history and remember how government involvement in research started.

    It all ties back to the National Science Foundation (NSF), one of the first government agencies built for funding science. In the late 1940s, one of the most outspoken supporters of the NSF was Democratic Senator Harley Kilgore. His motivations were clear: the NSF was to provide the government with a pool of educated researchers that could be used for strategic purposes during the Cold War. Scientific inquisition was never the primary purpose of the NSF.

    In addition to this, the system of “checks and balances” in scientific research is completely off-kilter. Private journals risk damage to their reputation if it is revealed that they have published fraudulent research. Privately funded journals compete to be the best among pools of hundreds of other publications. To maintain legitimacy in the eyes of future researchers and funders, publishing high quality research is in the private journal’s self-interest.

    Academic institutions funded by governments, on the other hand, are motivated to shield their researchers, as researchers play a crucial role in securing substantial grant funding for the institution, often reaching into the millions of dollars. Government exists in a playing field outside the private sector—they aren’t competing against other specialized journals. Because they aren’t specialized and fund a wide array of projects, they can often afford to let “a few bad apples” through (unfortunately, at the expense of taxpayers).

    The source of funding also undoubtedly (at the very least subconsciously) sways the research outcomes. There are several ways the government introduces bias into research. For one, the state often ignores certain scientific queries, forcing researchers to adopt different hypotheses or study different questions to gain any funding. Without any market forces guiding research and development, study objectives start aligning more with the interests of bureaucrats and less with the interests of patients.

    Government agencies also don’t want to fund proposals that contradict the agency’s political ideas. If the research’s outcome even slightly threatens the government’s power, funding is likely to be cut off, often for extended periods. These outcomes are clearest when it comes to funding regarding the social sciences and economics, but also occur with life science research. 34% percent of scientists receiving federal funding have acknowledged engaging in research misconduct to align research with their funder’s political and economic agenda. Moreover, a mere 24% of these researchers have disclosed these ethically questionable research practices to their supervisors.

    This incentive structure also explains why there is a limited amount of research into the accuracy of government-funded research. Many researchers are simply too afraid of the funding and reputational consequences that come with revealing problems with government funding. When there is research into federal funding bias, it is often concentrated on very specific and politically divisive topics (such as the use of stem cells). A team of researchers at the CATO Institute found just 44 Google Scholar articles from 2010-2014 that dealt with this type of government bias influencing research.

    The government’s overpowering role in science simultaneously crowds out private sources of funding. Despite this, there is some good news: the private sector is getting more and more involved in scientific funding by the day.

    Globally, 70% of science is financed privately. Charities like the American Cancer Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute collectively contribute billions of dollars to spurring innovation in their respective fields.

    For example, renowned neurologist Dr. Helen Mayberg’s research into deep brain stimulation as a depression treatment wasn’t supported by government grants. Instead, private sources funded her research. Yet, her discoveries led to additional trials and eventually breakthroughs in the way depression is treated.

    Most Americans treat government-funded science as the holy grail of scientific research, but it truly isn’t. Without proper market signals guiding the direction of research, millions of tax dollars are lost, and thousands of hours of scientific research are wasted. As Milton Friedman explained regarding government funding of science, “The scientific ability of really able people is being diverted from the goals they would like to pursue themselves to the goals of government officials.” It’s up to the next generation to decide who they trust more: scientists, or the state?


    Ulyana Kubini

    Ulyana Kubini is a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur and political activist.

    This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.


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  • ‘It’s Easy Money’: Nigerian Scammer Laughs about Huge Sums Stolen from COVID Welfare Programs in Bombshell Interview

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    State unemployment agencies aren’t especially responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars even in the best of times. Yet when the COVID-19 crisis and government lockdowns put tens of millions of Americans out of work, Congress responded by pouring more taxpayer money into state-level unemployment systems.

    The federal legislation enormously increased weekly payouts and expanded unemployment benefits to many new classes of workers, with little in the way of verification or qualification requirements. This welfare expansion was just reauthorized in the second major COVID-19 spending package, which Congress passed in mid-December. Sadly, lawmakers didn’t bother to address the runaway fraud that had plagued the first round of COVID relief efforts.

    An astonishing $36 billion has been lost to fraud in pandemic unemployment benefits, the Department of Labor reports. To put this figure in context, the entire unemployment system only paid out about $26 billion in 2019.

    That’s right: Bureaucrats lost to fraud more than is usually paid out in an entire year. The $36 billion lost—and that’s just the fraud we know about—amounts to an average of roughly $1,894 lost per current unemployment beneficiary. (What would we think of a private system that lost nearly $2,000 for each customer served?)

    These figures alone are horrifying, but a new bombshell interview with one of the countless international scammers getting rich off our relief efforts makes it painfully clear just how carelessly Congress is throwing around our money.

    A Nigerian student named Mayowa spoke to USA Today and, on the condition of partial anonymity, openly admitted to scamming $50,000 from the US pandemic welfare system so far.

    All he had to do was make a list of real people and then search through available databases of hacked information for their Social Security numbers and birthdates.

    “In most states that information is all it takes to file for unemployment,” USA Today’s Nick Penzenstadler says. ”Even when state applications require additional verification, a little more money spent on sites such as FamilyTreeNow and TruthFinder provides answers – your mother’s maiden name, where you were born, your high school mascot.”

    It doesn’t always work, of course. But Mayowa told the newspaper his success rate is pretty high—about one success in every six claim attempts.

    “Once we have that information, it’s over,” Mayowa told reporters. “It’s easy money.”

    Government bureaucrats were caught flat-footed, and the flood of money being rushed out the door in the name of emergency meant more vulnerabilities than ever. It took many states more than six months to add verification requirements and partially stem the flow. Just to use one state as an example, Washington state usually identifies a few dozen fraudsters in a year—now, it has identified more than 122,000 since March.

    “When you consider the policy factors accelerating benefits and getting them to the neediest people and the expanded $600 available … we had the perfect storm,” Washington Employment Security Department Commissioner Suzi Levine said. “[Scammers] have been lying in wait for this moment.”

    It’s certainly true that the COVID-19 pandemic and the sweeping big government response are unprecedented in our lifetimes. So, the runaway unemployment fraud and rampant fraud in other COVID relief programs are indeed an extreme example. But do not make the mistake of thinking that they are uncharacteristic of big-government programs by any stretch.

    As Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises explained, bureaucracy, incompetence, and waste are inherent to government administration by its very nature.

    In contrast, private businesses are driven to efficiency by the profit motive. A company-wide system that is broken and bleeding money is, in short order, fixed—or if it cannot be, that company will soon be driven out of business by more efficient competitors. This influences the behavior, not only of the business’s owners, but of its hired managers, and thus all its employees.

    “Within a business concern [the management of expenses] can be left without hesitation to the discretion of the responsible local manager,” Mises explained in his book Bureaucracy. “He will not spend more than necessary because it is, as it were, his money; if he wastes the concern’s money, he jeopardizes the branch’s profit and thereby indirectly hurts his own interests.”

    Fundamentally, in private enterprise, everyone involved has skin in the game. So, while mistakes still certainly happen, there’s a strong incentive to correct them and push for as much efficiency as is possible.

    In government the opposite is true.

    “It is another matter with the local chief of a government agency,” Mises explained. “In public administration there is no connection between revenue and expenditure. In public administration there is no market price for achievements.”

    It’s not that government bureaucrats want to waste taxpayer money. But the lack of proper incentives breeds incompetence, and all government agencies have a monopoly on what they do.

    If a state’s unemployment agency does a poor job, it doesn’t go out of business. Neither the profits of the “owners” nor the salaries of the workers are on the line. So, it’s much less likely that anyone will even face firing or disciplinary action for mistakes in government. (Especially thanks to the strength of public sector unions).

    Need proof? Only a few state administrators have been fired throughout this entire national COVID-19 welfare fraud scandal. It’s simply unthinkable that this level of scandal and waste could happen in private enterprise without wide-scale firings and other forms of accountability.

    This inherent inefficiency is a feature of government bureaucracy, not a bug.

    Yes, this particular problem may fade, if expanded pandemic unemployment relief programs are eventually allowed to expire. But waste, fraud, and inefficiency will plague big government efforts long after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides.

    RELATED: Why You Should Expect More Stimulus Fraud Coming Soon.


    Brad Polumbo

    Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Opinion Editor at the Foundation for Economic Education.

    This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.


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