Ben Goldacre's bad science is a great book on this topic. He's an entertaining speaker too. He describes a solution to that particular problem which is registering a clinical trials beforehand.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/07/ben-goldacr...
Science is incredibly broken in many ways. I think the big underlying culprit is the prevailing ideology that every human activity is best organized as a competition for scarce resources.
Then gradually re-enculture review boards to expect any given author to have a substantial number of results published to said repository, if they're actively performing research.
Can you resolve / flesh this out more? If the desire for funding is a key driver of behavior then it would seem most anything is possible, including conspiracy or related nefarious activites.
Humans, especially those with big ideas and big egos, in pursuit of fortune and fame have been known to bend and break the rules.