Global Research - In the past few years more professionals have come forward to share a truth that, for many people, proves difficult to swallow. One such authority is Dr. Richard Horton, the current editor-in-chief of the Lancet – considered to be one of the most well respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world.
Dr. Horton recently published a statement declaring that a lot of published research is in fact unreliable at best, if not completely false.
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.”
This is quite disturbing, given the fact that all of these studies (which are industry sponsored) are used to develop drugs/vaccines to supposedly help people, train medical staff, educate medical students and more.
It’s common for many to dismiss a lot of great work by experts and researchers at various institutions around the globe which isn’t “peer-reviewed” and doesn’t appear in a “credible” medical journal, but as we can see, “peer-reviewed” doesn’t really mean much anymore. “Credible” medical journals continue to lose their tenability in the eyes of experts and employees of the journals themselves, like Dr. Horton.
He also went on to call himself out in a sense, stating that journal editors aid and abet the worst behaviours, that the amount of bad research is alarming, that data is sculpted to fit a preferred theory. He goes on to observe that important confirmations are often rejected and little is done to correct bad practices. What’s worse, much of what goes on could even be considered borderline misconduct.
Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor in Chief of the New England Medical Journal, which is considered to another one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, makes her view of the subject quite plain:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine”
4 comments:
I've been concerned about this issue for years. When I mention it, people usually tell me I'm being Anti-Science. I try to explain I'm not anti-science, I'm only anti bad science, which is far to common these days.
We all know that bad money drives out the good money. In a similar way, credentailing drives out real education. Further, bogus medical research drives out genuine medical research. Why? Because attaining real success is difficult and relatively rare. Gradually, rules are relaxed to make success seem more attainable. Alas, all that happens is that reality becomes harder to separate from the faux - until the systems depending on reality crash.
Example: a hummingbird thinks that saccharin water is sweet, just as we do. But they will drop dead from ingesting it because it has no caloric value.
Time to reread Ivan Illich's Medical Nemesis... testimony and prophesy...
The serpent, the killer fruit, the garden. Still going on today, for a
few bucks. Lost souls, decayed society out of favor of God. Nothing that
new just another repeat of history with a different flavor. I trust no
company or store completely, the food/drug producers working overtime to trick people to think that the poison is OK, or even healthy or healing. The test
comes in you have this or that disease and need this or that drug or treatment,
junk science backs it up, you believe that Conman in a lab coat. Go for it and
suffer, not me, not me, I double and triple check everything before I accept anything as truth.
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