In more than two years of the global health crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, ethical issues regarding health data have been emerging quickly to the central focus of the global scientific community. Many papers have been retracted because of data problems, including those from prestigious journals. For example, two papers in The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) were retracted due to concerns regarding the veracity of datasets. Elisabeth Bik, an academic image sleuth, has

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... d that 4% of more than 20000 biomedical papers she checked contained problematic image duplications; her efforts have led to at least 172 retractions. When the lives and well-being of countless people are at stake, and all eyes are on science, such mistakes could be (and have been) disruptive toward public trust, which might further fuel conspiracy theories, science-denying, and anti-vax attitudes. We require health data of good ethical standards, but who will be responsible if such standards are not met?