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Fraud and misrepresentation in retail forest products exceeds U.S. forensic wood science capacity
Fraud and misrepresentation in forest products supply chains is often associated with illegal logging, but the extent of fraud in the U.S. forest products market, and the availability of forensic expertise to detect it, is unknown. We used forensic wood anatomy to test 183 specimens from 73 consumer...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6657862/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31344141 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219917 |
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author | Wiedenhoeft, Alex C. Simeone, John Smith, Amy Parker-Forney, Meaghan Soares, Richard Fishman, Akiva |
author_facet | Wiedenhoeft, Alex C. Simeone, John Smith, Amy Parker-Forney, Meaghan Soares, Richard Fishman, Akiva |
author_sort | Wiedenhoeft, Alex C. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Fraud and misrepresentation in forest products supply chains is often associated with illegal logging, but the extent of fraud in the U.S. forest products market, and the availability of forensic expertise to detect it, is unknown. We used forensic wood anatomy to test 183 specimens from 73 consumer products acquired from major U.S. retailers, surveyed U.S. experts regarding their forensic wood anatomy capacity, and conducted a proficiency-testing program of those experts. 62% of tested products (45 of 73) had one or more type of fraudulent or misrepresented claim. Survey respondents reported a total capacity of 830 wood specimens per year, and participants’ identification accuracy ranged from 6% to 92%. Given the extent of fraud and misrepresentation, U.S. wood forensic wood anatomy capacity does not scale with the need for such expertise. We call for increased training in forensic wood anatomy and its broader application in forest products supply chains to eliminate fraud and combat illegal logging. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6657862 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-66578622019-08-07 Fraud and misrepresentation in retail forest products exceeds U.S. forensic wood science capacity Wiedenhoeft, Alex C. Simeone, John Smith, Amy Parker-Forney, Meaghan Soares, Richard Fishman, Akiva PLoS One Research Article Fraud and misrepresentation in forest products supply chains is often associated with illegal logging, but the extent of fraud in the U.S. forest products market, and the availability of forensic expertise to detect it, is unknown. We used forensic wood anatomy to test 183 specimens from 73 consumer products acquired from major U.S. retailers, surveyed U.S. experts regarding their forensic wood anatomy capacity, and conducted a proficiency-testing program of those experts. 62% of tested products (45 of 73) had one or more type of fraudulent or misrepresented claim. Survey respondents reported a total capacity of 830 wood specimens per year, and participants’ identification accuracy ranged from 6% to 92%. Given the extent of fraud and misrepresentation, U.S. wood forensic wood anatomy capacity does not scale with the need for such expertise. We call for increased training in forensic wood anatomy and its broader application in forest products supply chains to eliminate fraud and combat illegal logging. Public Library of Science 2019-07-25 /pmc/articles/PMC6657862/ /pubmed/31344141 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219917 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Wiedenhoeft, Alex C. Simeone, John Smith, Amy Parker-Forney, Meaghan Soares, Richard Fishman, Akiva Fraud and misrepresentation in retail forest products exceeds U.S. forensic wood science capacity |
title | Fraud and misrepresentation in retail forest products exceeds U.S. forensic wood science capacity |
title_full | Fraud and misrepresentation in retail forest products exceeds U.S. forensic wood science capacity |
title_fullStr | Fraud and misrepresentation in retail forest products exceeds U.S. forensic wood science capacity |
title_full_unstemmed | Fraud and misrepresentation in retail forest products exceeds U.S. forensic wood science capacity |
title_short | Fraud and misrepresentation in retail forest products exceeds U.S. forensic wood science capacity |
title_sort | fraud and misrepresentation in retail forest products exceeds u.s. forensic wood science capacity |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6657862/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31344141 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219917 |
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