Lancet, New England Journal: Half of all medical studies are false.

[Binkie The Clown]

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.” (source)

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.

More at link

So yes, I do doubt it when industry sponsored studies claim that GMOs are harmless and this new wonder drug will cure everything that ails you, and coffee is good for you bad for you good for you bad for you.

Meanwhile, legitimate non-drug treatments and prevention are slammed by drug company shills as "fads" or "useless" or "pseudo science". The truth is that a healthy diet and lifestyle does more to prevent diseases such as hypertension and type II diabetes than all the "wonder" drugs being pushed by big pharma. (There are whole regions where hypertension simply does not exist because of their diet and lifestyle. But big pharma doesn't want anyone knowing about that.)

[villager]

1. "...flagrant conflicts of interest...."

Yup....

[malaise]

3. The day universities started taking Chairs from corporate interests

is the day the conflict started. More than a few departments and academics are sell outs.

[villager]

5. More than a few indeed, alas

Their PR-spinning notwithstanding...

[1StrongBlackMan]

28. And an equally troubling mix of ...

a institutional demand that research be "translational", combined with the academic "publish or perish" route to tenure AND the media driven Rock star/Celebrity status granted to "new discoveries."

[Rex]

2. Well that explains the 'side effects might included

death, slow death, painful death and slow and painful death.' I am always leery of a drug that is supposed to help, but side effects might include blood gushing out of your ears.

[malaise]

4. Everytime I listen to the side effects in those ads

I crack up - who would take that shit?

[malthaussen]

9. moi aussi!

Talk about the cure being worse than the disease...

-- Mal

[malaise]

11. Seriously why would anyone take all of those risks

[hobbit709]

16. I always liked that one allergy med one.

Side feects include nausea, upset stomach and uncontrollable diarrhea. I'd much rather have a runny nose than a runny rear end.

[malaise]

20. I like those with death as a side effect

[Lindsay]

6. One person I know

always adds to those side-effects lists, "Demonic possession."

I find it helpful to remember that one.

[meow2u3]

25. Those side effects make for comedic gold

A comedian ought to have a field day poking fun at prescription drug ads running so rampant in all sorts of media.

[PoliticAverse]

7. but, but, "peer review"! n/t

[GeorgeGist]

8. I'll wait to see the data that validates their opinions.

[malthaussen]

10. So, is this article an example of the half that is valid...

... or the half that is not? Dr Horton should try not to undermine his statement that way.

-- Mal

[Rex]

12. LOL!

Didn't think about that, I wonder if he did!?

[pnwmom]

14. He's correct about the flagrant conflict of interest. Whether the number of false

studies is 25, 50% or more is not important.

All of them should be viewed with appropriate caution. Just because a profit-making drug company puts out a study in favor of one of its products doesn't mean we should automatically accept it.

[Yavin4]

15. In fact, we should be even more skeptical

if there's a huge profit incentive involved.

[pnwmom]

13. Thank you. nt

[aikoaiko]

17. Type I error results are very publishable

[TransitJohn]

18. Yay!

More woo headed this way soon. This will be posted all over where ever you find advocacy for not vaccinating your children, and miracle cancer cures involving diet.

[bemildred]

19. More like 2/3 "not reproducible" the way I read it.

"Garbage in, garbage out".

[jeff47]

21. Not all science is expensive.

So yes, I do doubt it when industry sponsored studies claim that GMOs are harmless

Great! Rats are cheap. Get a bunch. Make sure they aren't the strains that were bred to develop cancer or other medical problems. You're looking for ye olde standard white lab rat.

Go to an organic farmer, and buy some of his grain. Go to a GMO farmer, and buy some of his grain. And guess what? You just got around the "can't use this for experiments" claim, because you weren't under contract with the GMO company.

Divide the rats into three groups. Feed group 1 the GMO grain. Feed group 2 the organic grain. Feed group 3 standard "rat chow". Document the differences between the groups.

Congratulations, you've now run an experiment that can actually find if GMOs are as dangerous as claimed. And it didn't cost much.

(It's odd that all the scientists trying to show GMOs are dangerous just don't happen to run this simple and cheap experiment, and instead use rats bred to develop cancer, or don't measure GMO vs organic vs "rat chow" to see if the problems are the plant itself, or use tiny sample sizes, or other weird experimental designs)

[Binkie The Clown]

29. I suspect that GMOs might not be hazardous.

What I doubt is the claim that they absolutely are NOT hazardous.
Of course I also doubt the claim that they absolutely ARE hazardous.

But in the meanwhile, I'll avoid them so that in ten years when they discover that GMOs make your nose fall off, I'll be one of the few people left who still has a nose.

[cpwm17]

22. That's already been established that over 1/2 of all medical studies are not accurate.

That's why there is the scientific method. Single studies are not complete science. To be science, the studies must be duplicated. That's why science has been so successful in creating so much of the modern world.

People ignorant of the fact that single studies aren't reliable latch on to the single studies that tell them what they want to hear, such as, vaccines cause autism and glyphosate causes cancer. That's not good science.

[bananas]

23. Bjoern Brembs writes a lot about this on his blog

For example http://bjoern.brembs.net/2015/06/are-more-retractions-due-to-more-scrutiny/

tl;dr: The data suggest a combination of three factors leading to more retractions in ‘top’ journals: 1. Worse methodological quality; 2. Higher incidence of fraud 3. Peer-review light. One would intuitively expect increased readership/scrutiny to play some role, but there is currently no evidence for it and some circumstantial evidence against it.

[Codeine]

24. Man, that's a misleading title.

And nicely-disguised link too.

[hunter]

26. Inevitable in "for profit" medicine...

... especially the big pharmaceutical companies.

Sometimes new expensive medicines are really great, sometimes they are mediocre and not as good as existing generics, sometimes they have serious side effects, and sometimes they are downright dangerous.

But you'd never know it from the people selling it. All their medicines are really great. Medicine in the U.S.A. is extremely polluted by marketing, to both doctors and their patients.

[MADem]

27. When I know that a study is "industry sponsored" my bullshit meter starts ticking. nt