Its a way of life. This was common in the Semiconductor Industry to. People would publish false work, or within the company try to "smooth data" to cover something up. People filed patents that never worked, some of them were ludicrous and stole from others to publish or file. You learn to put up a shield that says "No-Moochers".

One of my old bosses said that half of the chemistry articles he read while in industry could not be reproduced by him and his colleagues. One major flaw of the peer review system is that authors are asked to provide names of potential reviewers. Usually they name people whom they have referenced in their papers. The reviewers are honored that their work is being cited and sometimes fail to (or in many cases are unable to) scrutinize with sufficient care.