When Money Gets in the Way

Want fake information? Offer money for it. That was the unfortunate discovery researchers at Family Health International (FHI) recently made when they tried to conduct a study on contraceptive methods.

After offering subjects $150 to participate in a one-month study, researchers, led by FHI epidemiologist Markus Steiner, Ph.D., found that eight of the first 25 participants who signed up were bogus. Steiner and his colleagues were able to track down some of them through the use of interactive voice response system (IVRS) technology, which allows participants to call in their daily responses. Five of the eight deceivers were in cahoots and used the same telephone line to dial in their responses. Another three provided suspicious or incorrect addresses to the researchers. Because of the "unacceptably high exclusion rate" of 32%. FHI was forced to terminate the study. They called off another study when a researcher discovered that a participant was also using another kind of birth control.

In a letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers pointed out that this outcome was not the first of its kind. "It's really important for researchers to embrace new technologies like IVRS, but researchers still need to know that fraud can never be totally eliminated," says Steiner. "They should always be aware that it will be there."

Steiner suggests the public have a "healthy degree of skepticism" toward published studies. He points out, however, that this type of fraud happens most often in studies that require self-reporting or ones that examine private information.