Fraud law doesn't need to be stretched, academic fraud is covered and criminally prosecutable in the USA for decades. It has to be because they're using these results to apply for grants paid from tax monies.

Occasionally someone is even prosecuted! Unfortunately, even when the government wins, the institutions just treat the resulting fines as a cost of business. See the Dana Farber Cancer Center: prosecuted by a third party on behalf of the government, found guilty of faking their science for a decade+, paid the fine - and nothing anywhere on the DFCC website mentions anything about it.

Thanks for this comment, and I totally agree.

Only important things I'd add

> and nothing anywhere on the DFCC website mentions anything about it

That doesn't really surprise or bother me - I wouldn't exactly say it was a coverup just because they aren't heralding some major Fed case against them on their own website. But I do find it shitty that the Wikipedia page of Dr. Laurie Glimcher, who was president of the institute at the time, had some papers retracted and apparently resigned over the issue, makes it sound like she just retired because she completed her mission and has no mention of the scandal.

The bigger issue I see is that someone wasn't prosecuted, just the institution. I didn't spend a ton of time looking, but AFAICT no individual faced any serious consequences beyond "reputational damage". This is why the "corporations are people" shit is so aggravating. If corporations are people, then some people who committed these crimes should have faced legal consequences, not just have their malfeasance paid out by the organization.