STATISTICS, IMAGES, AND PERCEPTIONS OF TRUTH:

DETECTING RESEARCH BIAS AND MISCONDUCT

September 14th and 15th, 2006

Birmingham, Alabama

A CONFERENCE of national interest ON RESEARCH BIAS AND MISCONDUCT

This conference will cover some of the ways in which analyses and reporting in science can be biased, as well as the consequences of engaging in bad practices. Speakers will include nationally prominent researchers and statisticians, journal editors, and experts in the regulatory oversight of research activities. Sessions will teach what to look for in the way of signs that a colleague's manuscript, a peer's manuscript submitted for publication, or a peer's proposal submitted for review, is biased.

Using many examples and case studies, the talks and discussion sessions of the conference will be useful not only for investigators and research personnel in learning up-to-date guidelines for image and data reporting, but also for individuals with less research experience, such as research administrators, IRB administrators, IRB members, institutional integrity officers, research ethicists, health law attorneys, and students in learning to discern what to look for in evaluating the soundness of an analysis or report.

The second day of the conference will cover the consequences of engaging in bad practices or misconduct including discussions, by speakers intimately involved, of the recently widely-publicized misconduct case of the Vermont researcher, Eric Poehlman. The issue of the part played by editors in detecting and deterring misconduct will be discussed by the President-elect and former Chair of the Publications Committee of the American Physiological Society. This session of the conference will wrap up with an inside look, by a researcher with decades of experience working for the FDA, at the nature and rationale of some FDA practices used the detection of misconduct.

Activities will include an evening reception at Vulcan Park on September 14^th.

PROGRAM

REGISTRATION FORM

CONFERENCE FEE

$150. Includes materials, evening reception, box lunch, breakfast, and CME credits. Talks free for students; meals free for students if registration is by Aug 15^th

REGISTRATION

Send name, affiliation, and check or credit card number to:

UAB Ethics Center/414A HB/ 900 13^th St. So./ Birmingham, AL 35394

LOCATION

DOUBLETREE HOTEL at University Avenue and 20th Street

1-800-222-8733

To get conference rates ($83.00+tax) reserve a room by Aug 15

If you have QUESTIONS email:

philosophy@uab.edu; or call 205-934-4805