The medical community here was last shaken byrevelations of fraud in 1981, when John R. Darsee,then an associate professor, admitted tofabricating research data from a study on heartattacks.

Harvard dismissed Darsee and subsequentlyestablished a standing committee on facultyconduct to investigate and punish research fraudcases.

In his letter, Tosteson said that thosemeasures are adequate for looking into andpunishing fraud but "contribute little toprevention."

Despite the two widely publicized instances offraud in recent years, Harvard medical professorssaid that the Medical Area is not subject to morefraud than other schools.

"Harvard is a preeminent institution. Cases atother institutions don't make the same splash,"said White Professor of Biological ChemistryManfred L. Karnovsky.

Several Medical School faculty memberssuggested that closer supervision of researchwould cut down but not eliminate instances offraud.

"I agree with the idea that the [heads oflaboratories] are responsible for the accuracy ofall data that comes out of their labs," said DavidM. Knipe, associate professor of Microbiology."But [fraud] is very hard to legislate away."

Research supervisors "should where possiblelook at raw data, especially when the finding isclaimed to be important," said Krayer Professor ofPharmacology Irving H. Goldberg. "If you just seethe data turned into a table of results, you'reasking for trouble."

Large laboratories which rush to publish theirresults make themselves vulnerable to fraud,several professors said.

"My prejudice is that there are feweropportunities for fraud in smaller laboratorieswith closer observation," Goldberg said.

"In a very hot field, people want to publish asfast as possible, so a lot of the checking [ofdata] is not done," Karnovsky.

However, too much supervision could be harmful,said Kuhn Professor of Biological Chemistry EugeneP. Kennedy. "There's a need for balance. We needsome super-vision but we can't have too much. Wecan't have an Orwellian atmosphere," he said