With fraud and sleaze so visible all over the world in politics, finance and public life, finding that these also exist in medical research should come as no surprise. Yet it does, and medical scientists still react as if a case were unique. And they manage it so badly, with the whistleblower often more penalised than the miscreant. Seemingly, fraud has a brief history. I argue that scientists should be aware of the problem, try to deal fairly with any suspected case on well recognised lines and, crucially, aim at preventing it by following good standards of research practice.