This article sort of just glosses over any reasons why existing laws aren't enough. It states that existing scientific fraud is rarely prosecuted (e.g. under fraud statutes), so it seems to me the right course of action should be to prosecute it!

In the US at least, it's nearly impossible to commit this kind of malfeasance without committing federal wire fraud - faked research would nearly always be part of a grant application, at least eventually, for example.

Plus, I'm surprised some enterprising lawyers haven't at least tried some massive class action lawsuits. The actual researcher may not have much to go after, but surely their institutions would. If you can get huge class action payouts for the dubious connection of talc in baby powder to cancer, why can't you get a payout here where (a) the malfeasance was intentional from the get go and (b) the harms are unambiguously clear from follow-up meta-analysis studies.

I guess I would like to understand if there is some fundamental reason that existing statutes aren't enough before adding laws.