Paul McCrory Faces 10 More Allegations of Plagiarism

Back in March, we took a look at the story of prominent chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and brain trauma expert Paul McCrory

At the time, McCrory was the Concussion in Sports Group, an organization that provides guidance to a wide variety of sporting organizations, including FIFA, the National Football League, the International Olympic Committee, F1 and more, on the issue of CTE. 

Specifically, his task was to advise the sports organizations on how to handle concussions and other cases of possible brain injury. McCrory was popular among those organizations in large part because he downplayed the impacts of CTE and pushed for looser policies.

However, things began to unravel for McCrory when researcher Steve Haake published a paper in Retraction Watch that accused McCrory of plagiarizing some 560 words of his in a letter published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM). 

To make matters worse, McCrory was an editor of the journal at the time the plagiarized letter was published. McCrory, for his part, did not deny the plagiarism but, instead, claimed it was “an isolated and unfortunate incident.” 

However, that incident turned out to be anything but isolated. A follow-up article written by Nick Brown found evidence of significant plagiarism in two other letters McCrory had published at the BJSM. Then, thanks to additional work by Brown, ten more incidents of plagiarism and self-plagiarism were found

The allegations had a quick impact on McCrory’s career. He resigned from the Concussion in Sports Group, and many of the organizations that had worked closely with him began to distance themselves from his work

At that point, the story seemed to be over. McCrory’s influence had waned significantly, and he had already been removed from his most important posts and was under investigation by Australia’s medical regulator. 

However, the work of Nick Brown did not stop there. Last week, he published another blog post, this one detailing 10 more allegations of plagiarism and self-plagiarism

This has led to new calls for an investigation into McCrory’s work. In an article for The Guardian, Dr. Chris Nowinski, a prominent neuroscientist and head of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, said, “Frankly, anything Paul McCrory has touched has to be reopened. Everybody he’s advised has to reopen what they’ve done, every paper he has been part of should be looked at.”

Nowinski goes on to say that McCrory’s work minimizing the impacts of CTE is “sentencing another generation to developing this disease.”

Whether that investigation will happen or not remains to be seen. However, one thing is clear, McCrory’s already shaky reputation has taken another serious blow.

Why Self Plagiarism Matters

One thing that makes the new allegations different from the previous ones is that there is a great deal of focus on self plagiarism or recycling of old content.

Of the ten examples provided, six were entirely cases of self-plagiarism or recycling, while the other four were a mix of self-plagiarism and regular plagiarism.

To many, this might not seem like a big deal. Since, in many of the cases, no one else was plagiarized from, it can seem like a victimless crime.

However, as we’ve discussed before, there are two victims of plagiarism: The person plagiarized from and the audience that is lied to. Here, that second victim is paramount.

CTE is a rapidly evolving area of medical research and, as Brown put it in an interview with The Guardian, “Dr McCrory has been churning out very similar stories for 20 years, while, as far as I have been able to establish, performing very little original empirical or other research in that time.”

In short, this presents old research as new and, in a space that’s as rapidly-evolving as this one, that can be deadly. While there is nothing wrong with reusing previous work, it has to be cited clearly to avoid misleading peer reviewers and readers alike.

This says nothing about the fact that McCrory’s self-plagiarism also took journal space away from other researchers in this field. Journals can only peer review and publish so many articles per edition, and space taken up by McCrory’s self-plagiarized material pushes out others that are doing new work in the same area.

Given the seriousness of this topic and the importance of research being as up-to-date as possible, this is actively dangerous. McCrory’s actions go beyond ethical violations with hypothetical impacts to science. In short, this has the potential to do very real harm, and it’s ultimately athletes that will suffer those consequences.

Bottom Line

In the end, I agree completely with both Nowinski and Brown. Everything McCrory has touched needs to be examined and treated with mistrust until it can be verified. 

The allegations against McCrory go well beyond just plagiarism and self-plagiarism. He’s also accused of misrepresenting data and other researchers’ findings while ignoring important new studies that challenge his stated opinions.

The organizations that relied on McCrory’s work are overdue for a reckoning. It’s more important than ever to look to the broader scientific consensus on the topic and follow recommendations that aren’t tainted by research integrity issues.

If nothing else, this case highlights why research integrity is so important. While it’s easy to discuss research ethics and the need to do the right thing, this case exposes the real-world dangers that can arise when best practices aren’t followed. 

No matter what happens from here on, this case will have very real consequences for athletes a sports organizations wrestle with the best ways to protect their athletes from CTE and other brain trauma. 

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