[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 141 (Tuesday, July 22, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Pages 42575-42576]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-16741]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Office of the Secretary


Findings of Scientific Misconduct

AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, HHS.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the Office of Research Integrity 
(ORI) and the Assistant Secretary for Health have taken final action in 
the following case:
    Roxana Gonzalez, Carnegie Mellon University: Based on reports 
submitted by Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU) inquiry and 
investigation committees, the Respondent's own admission in sworn 
testimony, and additional analysis conducted by the Office of Research 
Integrity (ORI) during its oversight review, the U.S. Public Health 
Service (PHS) found that Roxana Gonzalez, graduate student, Department 
of Social and Decision Sciences and Psychology, CMU, engaged in 
scientific misconduct in research supported by National Institute of 
Mental Health (NIMH), National Institutes of Health (NIH), grants R01 
MH56880, R03 MH62376, and R24 MH67346.
    Specifically, PHS found that Ms. Gonzalez engaged in the following 
acts of scientific misconduct:
    1. Respondent altered the main dependent variable (life events; 
life expectation) in the electronic file and the manipulation check 
variables for ease-of-thought generation so that the reported study 
results are largely unsupported in:
    (a) Publication: Lerner, J.S., & Gonzalez, R.M. ``Forecasting one's 
future based on fleeting subjective experiences.'' Personality and 
Social Psychology Bulletin 31:454-466, 2005;
    (b) 2005 Manuscript: Lerner, J. S., & Gonzalez, R. M. ``On 
perceiving the self as triumphant when happy or angry'';
    (c) Review Article: Lerner J. S., Tiedens, L.Z., & Gonzalez, R. M. 
``Portrait of the angry decision maker: How appraisal tendencies shape 
anger's influence on cognition.'' Journal of Behavioral Decision 
Making: Special Issue on Emotion and Decision Making.
    2. Respondent falsified cortisol values, and possibly 
cardiovascular measures and optimistic appraisals (as measured by LOT), 
so that a large portion of the mediation analyses of Table 3 does not 
reflect the data actually collected and analyzed for the study reported 
in a publication (Lerner, J.S., Gonzalez, R.M., Dahl, R.E., Hariri, 
A.R., & Taylor, S.E. ``Facial expressions of emotion reveal 
neuroendocrine and cardiovascular stress responses.'' Biological 
Psychiatry 58:743-750, 2005). Respondent further allowed one of her 
collaborators to report the results from this study at the Annual 
Meeting of the American Psychological Society held in Los Angeles, 
California in May 2005, although Respondent's collaborator did not know 
at the time that the results were tainted by Respondent's acts of 
research misconduct.
    3. Respondent falsified the analyses based on participants' 
responses to the manipulation check items (including the data for self 
reported fear) in a study reported in a publication (Fischhoff, B., 
Gonzalez, R.M., Lerner, J.S., & Small, D.A. ``Evolving judgments of 
terrorism's risks: Foresight, hindsight, and emotion.'' Journal of 
Experimental Psychology: Applied 11:124-139, 2005.
    4. Respondent falsified the main dependent variable (reservation 
price, BDM) in the electronic file for 48 of the 175 subjects 
participating in a study reported in a 2005 manuscript (Lerner, J.S., 
Gonzalez, R.M., Small, D.A., Lowenstein, G., & Dahl, R.E. ``Emotional 
influence on economic behavior among adolescents.''). Respondent 
directed the alteration of the paper files for those subjects in order 
to match the altered electronic file. One of Respondent's collaborators 
included a qualitative description of the results of the research that 
is the subject of this study in an NIH grant application, although 
Respondent's collaborator did not know at the time that the results 
were tainted by the Respondent's acts of research misconduct.
    ORI acknowledges Ms. Gonzalez' extensive cooperation with CMU's 
research misconduct proceedings.
    Ms. Gonzalez has entered into a Voluntary Exclusion Agreement 
(Agreement) in which she has voluntarily agreed, beginning on June 26, 
2008:
    (1) To exclude herself from serving in any advisory capacity to 
PHS, including but not limited to service on any PHS advisory 
committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant or 
contractor to PHS, for a period of three (3) years;
    (2) That for a period of three (3) years, any institution that 
submits an application for PHS support for a research project on which 
the Respondent's participation is proposed or that uses the Respondent 
in any capacity on PHS supported research, or that submits a report of 
PHS-funded research in which the Respondent is involved, must 
concurrently submit a plan for supervision of the Respondent's duties 
to the funding agency for approval; the supervisory plan must be 
designed to ensure the scientific integrity of the respondent's 
research contribution; Respondent agrees to ensure that a copy of the 
supervisory plan is also submitted to ORI by the institution; 
Respondent agrees that she will not participate in any PHS-supported 
research until such a supervisory plan is submitted to ORI;
    (3) for a period of three (3) years to ensure that any institution 
employing her submits, in conjunction with each application for PHS 
funds or report, manuscript, or abstract of PHS-funded research in 
which the Respondent is involved, a certification that the data 
provided by the Respondent are based on actual experiments or are 
otherwise legitimately derived, and that the data, procedures, 
analyses, and methodology are accurately reported in the application, 
report, manuscript or abstract; the Respondent must ensure

[[Page 42576]]

that the institution sends a copy of the certification to ORI; and
    (4) to write ORI-approved letters to (a) collaborators/coauthors of 
the manuscripts and published papers cited above, stating what she 
falsified/fabricated and offering restitution; and (b) editors of the 
journals in which papers were published (even if they have been 
retracted/corrected) to state that her falsifications/fabrications were 
the underlying reason for the retraction/correction.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Director, Division of Investigative 
Oversight, Office of Research Integrity, 1101 Wootton Parkway, Suite 
750, Rockville, MD 20852, (240) 453-8800.

Chris B. Pascal,
Director, Office of Research Integrity.
 [FR Doc. E8-16741 Filed 7-21-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4150-31-P