Fraud and misconduct have probably always existed in biomedical research and, as is evidenced by recent events, they are here to stay. Witness, for example, two recent cases, one in basic science from 2006, that of the Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-Suk, and the other from clinical medicine in 2009 (after the book under review was published), that of Scott Reuben, the anaesthesia and pain researcher.