The voice of experience

Whistleblowing is recognized as an important function in promoting scientific integrity, and there is a recognized need to protect whistleblowers. There is not much information available in the literature about scientific whistleblowing. Because it appears that frequently scientific misconduct is uncovered by a whistleblower, it is useful to obtain more information about the activity. This paper is about whistleblowing from the perspective of the person blowing the whistle. Information about a few selected cases of whistleblowing is presented in an attempt to augment the experiential aspect of the activity. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the symposium entitled “Damned If You Do. Damned If You Don’t: What the Scientific Community Can Do About Whistleblowing” held during the Annual Meeting of the AAAS, Seattle, Washington, 15 February, 1997.