Education: Sin and Phin

"Fraud" in academia?

Harvard Assistant Professor Phin Cohen, an M.D. and biochemist, was studying human blood chemistry under a $200,000 research grant from the National Institutes of Health in 1972, when an aide to his department chairman asked him to sign a form. Innocuously titled "Report of Expenditures," it was designed to explain how Cohen's federal research money had been spent. Trouble was, the copy shown Cohen was blank. He asked for a list of expenditures. No, he was told, other researchers customarily signed blank forms. Administrators filled in the items later. Cohen...

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