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

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