But there exists a population of dilettante Americans who suggest it is not rare, and that Academic is rampantly permeated with it.

Some to much of this attitude comes from platformed individuals rejected from Academia for unremarkable unaccomplishment, but who at some point gained or more likely CONNED a sufficient population of people to believe them.

Trump was rejected by Harvard. So was Barron. Because Trump has the bully pulpit of the presidency, he thinks he can attack Harvard as an equal, threatening to punish it by cancellation of federal contracts awarded to pursuit of valid scientific, medical, and legal research with interest and benefits to huge populations of people, and the general betterment and improvement of human society. He can attack it by unsupported accusations of academic fraud, which his base is all too eager to want to believe. It gives him and them immediate credibility to falsely persuade others, that a serious and significant problem exists.

This kind of sh!t, and it is sh!t TW, was expanded to other Ivy League schools because in the opinion of the Executive Dilettante, "All Academia does it." He bvllsh!ts, so they all must too.

Does this affect anyone YOU know?

If affects somebody I know. Somebody hired by Brown to investigate a possible cure or control for Alzheimer's discovered in the chemistry of parsley. The contract that led her from Colorado to Rhode Island for that research is is direct jeopardy because of this president, and his idiot mouthpiece Robert F Kennedy Jr. who directly named the research suspect.

The parsley connection doesn't surprise me. Parsley, related to hemlock, is toxic to some creatures. A whole group of black Papilionidae butterflies oviposit on parsley for the toxic properties that protects larvae and adults from predation. Repeatedly beneficial medical discoveries are made in the toxins of plants and animals, that have an almost miraculous effect when used as medicine for people.

The amount of academic fraud passed onto people is exceedingly minute. By peer review most of that never sees the light of day, and it shouldn't. People like those you love to cite, write about it as if they had the expertise to know. They don't.