STEWART-FEDER UPDATE: The long-term future for Walter Stewart and 
Ned Feder, two National Institutes of Health scientific fraud 
investigators removed from their laboratories and transferred 
elsewhere in the agency, is still being negotiated, though two 
powerful United States senators have recently lent support to 
their fight for reinstatement to their former positions.

TI   : NIH Fraud Investigators Take On New Roles At Agency, But 
       Remain Determined To Resume Sleuthing Activity
 
 
Stewart and Feder, with support from senators, continue efforts 
to have their controversial reassignments reversed
 
 
AU   : FRANKLIN HOKE
 
 
TY   : NEWS
 
 
PG   : 1
 
 
Walter Stewart and Ned Feder, the two  National  Institutes  of  
Health scientists whose fraud-busting investigations were quashed 
by forced reassignments last April, have now--after a summer-long 
resistance campaign--taken up their new positions.
 
 
 
Feder is a grants reviewer in the National Institute of Diabetes 
and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), and Stewart is a 
science writer in that institute's Office of Program Planning and 
Evaluation, writing summaries of the institute's research 
activities.
 
 
 
But while the pair may have acceded to their employers' demands 
for now, their long-running, controversial case is far from 
settled. Determined to resume their investigative roles, they 
have proposed creating an Office of Whistleblower Assistance at 
the institutes, to be staffed by them. They have also conducted 
workshops on their own time to explore sexual and racial 
discrimination, scientific misconduct, and retaliation on the NIH 
campus, offering to help attendees file official complaints.
 
 
 
Meanwhile, two senators have taken up their cause, pressing the 
General Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate their 
reassignments as possible violations of the 1989 Whistleblower 
Protection Act. Sens. William S. Cohen (R-Maine) and Charles E. 
Grassley (R-Iowa), cosponsors of the law, are concerned that the 
action at NIH, within the Department of Health and Human Services 
(HHS), may amount to retaliation.
 
 
 
"The two whistle-blowers are recognized experts in rooting out 
scientific fraud and uncovering waste of government funds," Cohen 
said in a statement. "This is work in which all Americans have a 
stake because it is their money that may be wasted. We must know 
all the facts surrounding the reassignment of these two 
scientists."
 
 
 
`Atmosphere Of Fear'
Stewart and Feder say the reassignments are certainly 
retaliation, an overt attempt to silence dissenting voices.
 
 
 
"And the sad fact is that suppression sends a message to the 
community at large," Stewart says. "It's not necessary to shut 
more than a few people up before you create an atmosphere of 
shutting up. There certainly is an atmosphere of fear here that 
if anyone speaks out, they're going to be retaliated against. And 
I think there's an adequate basis for that belief."
 
 
 
NIH originally reassigned Stewart and Feder to begin new jobs in 
early May. But the internal personnel move drew national 
attention, and, after a 33-day hunger strike by Stewart ended in 
mid-June, HHS placed the two on paid administrative leave pending 
a review of the case by the department's general counsel (F. 
Hoke, The Scientist, May 17, 1993, page 1; June 28, 1993, page 
4).
 
 
 
Several alternative job options were discussed during the review, 
but these were each rejected by either Stewart and Feder or the 
agency. These rejected possibilities included placements within 
HHS's Office of Research Integrity (ORI) or Office of the 
Inspector General (OIG) or temporary faculty positions with the 
Program for Cultural Values and Ethics at the University of 
Illinois, Champaign. Positions hardened, and HHS attorneys ended 
the negotiations with the late-September order for the two to 
return to work.
 
 
 
The dispute between Stewart and Feder and their employers stems 
largely from differing characterizations of their work. The two 
investigators say they are involved in scientific integrity 
research with important implications for biomedical science, 
while HHS views their work as unauthorized investigations of 
individual scientists with the seeming imprimatur of the 
government. Although the investigative work was part of Stewart 
and Feder's formal performance assessments, HHS now says such 
activities are appropriate only to official investigative 
offices.
 
 
 
"They profess that they're doing research, not investigation," 
says Michael Wald, deputy general counsel for HHS. "We find it 
hard to understand how they're differentiating it."
 
 
 
He adds: "Whatever work gets done by anybody within the agency on 
issues of scientific misconduct--whether it's direct 
investigation or research as to the causes of scientific 
misconduct--needs to be done in an appropriate manner by people 
operating within the structures of the agency. And whenever an 
investigation is involved, the privacy rights of people who are 
being investigated as well as the thoroughness of the 
investigation, both, are important values to be protected."
 
 
 
Stewart and Feder say they are not police but scientists, and, as 
such, must be allowed the freedoms traditionally accorded to 
scientists.
 
 
 
Sens. Cohen and Grassley have seen sufficient merit in that view 
to begin asking questions of HHS officials and to call for the 
GAO investigation. The two senators have been involved in a 
number of Department of Defense whistle-blower cases in the past.
 
 
 
"While we do not want to unjustly accuse anyone of wrongdoing in 
this case," Cohen said in the statement, "the circumstances 
surrounding the reassignment of Mr. Stewart and Dr. Feder have 
raised troubling questions about NIH practices." Cohen is the 
ranking Republican on the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government 
Management of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs.
 
 
 
 
A Midwestern Alternative
One employment option with appeal for all parties involved 
assigning Stewart and Feder to a university under the provisions 
of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA). The IPA allows 
federal employees to be temporarily assigned to nonfederal 
organizations for up to four years when it serves "sound public 
purpose," according to the federal personnel manual. The salaries 
and benefits of such employees continue to be paid by the federal 
government.
 
 
 
The federal personnel manual also  states,  "Assignments 
arranged...to avoid unpleasant personnel decisions are contrary 
to the spriit and intent of the mobility assignment program."
 
 
 
Still, after consultation with Stewart and Feder's lawyers, 
according to Wald, letters were sent from the HHS general 
counsel's office to 23 academics who had written in support of 
Stewart and Feder earlier, at the time of their reassignment.
 
 
 
"We asked them whether they would take the lead in seeing whether 
placement was possible at their university," says Wald, "figuring 
that the most likely kind of placements would be where there was 
already somebody interested in [Stewart and Feder's] work."
 
 
 
One of the people contacted was Robert Sprague, a professor of 
psychology at the University of Illinois, Champaign, and a former 
whistle-blower himself. Sprague received support from Stewart and 
Feder when he accused University of Pittsburgh psychologist 
Stephen Breuning of publishing false claims concerning 
psychotropic medication of mentally retarded people. Breuning 
pleaded guilty to academic fraud-related charges in United States 
District Court in Maryland on Nov. 10, 1988.
 
 
 
Sprague contacted the person in charge of the university's 
Program for Cultural Values and Ethics, who expressed an interest 
in bringing the two NIH scientists to Illinois. Further 
consultations led to specific ideas for work that Stewart and 
Feder might undertake once there.
 
 
 
One idea, Sprague says, involved Stewart and Feder using their 
so-called plagiarism machine--a computer system for comparing 
texts for similarities--to assess the plagiarism "norm" in 
science.
 
 
 
"They were going to look into the base rate of plagiarism with 
their equipment," says Sprague. "They would take a large database 
and try to assess in scientific literature just how much is 
duplicated or copied."
 
 
 
The arrangement foundered, however, on misunderstandings over 
whether the two NIH scientists would be able to maintain their 
homes in Washington and even their offices on the NIH campus. 
Stewart and Feder thought, as did Sprague, that they could 
fulfill their obligations with a part-time presence on the 
Illinois campus.
 
 
 
Wald and HHS, however, expected them to move to the Midwest.
"The purpose of an IPA is for an employee to be placed somewhere 
else to gather experiences and do things they couldn't otherwise 
do in the department," says Wald. It would "make no sense," 
according to Wald, for the pair to be supervised by the 
University of Illinois while physically working at NIH.
 
 
 
When the terms of the IPA could not be agreed upon, Stewart and 
Feder were ordered back to work, in new positions chosen for 
them.
 
 
 
Even in their new positions, Stewart and Feder have continued to 
offer ideas for ways they feel HHS could better use their 
talents. These include the formation of an Office of 
Whistleblower Assistance, to be initially staffed by them. 
Stewart says they have received no response to this suggestion to 
date.
 
 
 
Whistle-Blower Assistance
Whistle-blowers in several scientific misconduct cases indicate 
that such a role for them would serve an important purpose.
 
 
"People who are encountering difficulties and whom the system is 
working over have turned to [Stewart and Feder] as a resource," 
says Sprague. "And they've been very, very helpful. They were 
very helpful to me. The government ought to have some kind of a 
support system [for whistle-blowers]. And, clearly, they do not 
have."
 
 
 
Sprague says that young scientists often come to him for advice 
and counsel when they feel they have witnessed or been the 
victims of scientific misconduct.
 
 
 
"Some of these people are very distraught," Sprague says. 
"They've spent years working, and they see it slipping through 
their fingers because of some misconduct."
 
 
 
Margot O'Toole, the researcher who charged that central data had 
been faked in a 1986 Cell paper coauthored by Nobelist David 
Baltimore, emphasized the significance of Stewart and Feder's 
counsel to whistle-blowers in an interview with The Scientist 
earlier this year.
 
 
 
"They do two very important things," O'Toole said, "and they're 
the only two people in science who do them. One is that they 
promote debate: They study cases and see how the principles of 
science are supposed to apply.... And the other thing they do is 
provide evaluation and support for whistle-blowers."
 
 
 
A prime concern of Stewart and Feder's during their conflict with 
HHS has been the disposition of their files on scientific 
integrity cases. For now, these files remain locked up, as 
discussions continue.
 
 
 
One result of the standoff over the files, perhaps unforeseen by 
HHS, is that the two investigators are now actively seeking new 
cases. They have held two workshops this fall to explore sexual 
and racial discrimination, scientific misconduct, and retaliation 
on the NIH campus. Fliers publicizing the workshops declare that 
"anyone seeking help in formulating or submitting an [Equal 
Employment Opportunity] complaint or a complaint to the Office of 
Research Integrity would be especially welcome."
 
 
 
"Being deprived of our data," Stewart explains, "we're sort of 
wide open for business."
 
 
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #21, November 1, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)