Cancer: Fraud Across the Board
by Jon Rappoport
November 27, 2009
Let’s start with this…
ScienceDaily (May 13, 2009), 29 Percent Of Cancer Studies Report Conflict Of Interest:
Nearly one-third of cancer research published in high-impact journals disclosed a conflict of interest, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The most frequent type of conflict was industry funding of the study, which was seen in 17 percent of papers. Twelve percent of papers had a study author who was an industry employee. Randomized trials with reported conflicts of interest were more likely to have positive findings.
“Given the frequency we observed for conflicts of interest and the fact that conflicts were associated with study outcomes, I would suggest that merely disclosing conflicts is probably not enough. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we need to look more at how we can disentangle cancer research from industry ties,” says study author Reshma Jagsi, M.D., D.Phil., assistant professor of radiation oncology at the U-M Medical School.
The researchers looked at 1,534 cancer research studies published in prominent journals. Results of this current study appear online in the journal Cancer.
“A serious concern is individuals with conflicts of interest will either consciously or unconsciously be biased in their analyses. As researchers, we have an obligation to treat the data objectively and in an unbiased fashion. There may be some relationships that compromise a researcher’s ability to do that,” Jagsi says.
For example, she says, researchers might design industry-funded studies in a way that’s more likely to produce favorable results. They might also be more likely to publish positive outcomes than negative outcomes…
Methodology: The researchers looked at all original clinical cancer research published in five top oncology journals and three top general medical journals in 2006. The journals included were the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Lancet Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research and Cancer…
(end Science Daily clip)
So the researchers are bent. They are bent in the direction of their “non-scientific associations” and connections.
Then we have this, from Boston.com:
Flaws are found in validating medical studies
Many see need to overhaul standards for peer review
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | August 15, 2005
WASHINGTON — …after a study that sent reverberations through the medical profession by finding that almost one-third of top research articles have been either contradicted or seriously questioned, some specialists are calling for radical changes in the system.
…Rennie’s journal published the study, which said that subsequent research had found that almost one-third of the top papers that appeared in top journals over a 13-year period from 1990 to 2003, had been either contradicted or found to have potentially exaggerated results. All the articles had undergone vigorous peer review, leading to questions about whether problems should have been caught by reviewers.
…Under the system of peer review, a researcher submits findings to a journal for publication. Along with a review by editors, the article is sent to several specialists in the field.
These reviewers are not paid for their time, their names are usually not published, and their comments usually remain secret. They are usually not allowed to contact the researchers directly to ask questions, and they do not try to replicate the research.
The system has often had successes; many journal editors say peer review has saved countless prominent scientists from publishing seriously flawed work, and has spared the public from following mistaken medical advice.
But peer review also lacks consistent standards. Procedures vary among the world’s 10,000 or so journals. A peer reviewer often spends about four hours reviewing research that may have taken months or years to complete, but the amount of time spent on a review and the expertise of the reviewer can differ greatly, especially at lesser-known journals.
“It has been bandied about as a sort of ‘Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval’,” said Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. “It is only as good as the peer reviewers and editors.”
…Ioannidis, the author of the study on flawed research (“Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”), said he had examined articles from top journals published from 1990 to 2003, and had found that 16 percent of those studies were later contradicted, and that another 16 percent were not found to have had as strong a result in subsequent research.
…PLOS Medicine also encourages peer reviewers to reveal their identity, but it does not demand it.
The journal’s senior editor, Barbara Cohen, said some reviewers want anonymity out of concern about retribution, which she described as “you trashed my paper at Nature, now I’m trashing yours at Science,” referring to two leading journals.
Cohen also said she is sympathetic to younger peer reviewers who fear that providing criticism of a senior person in the field will hurt their career. This is a common complaint among reviewers.
…Armstrong, the professor who has read dozens of studies on peer review, cited numerous embarrassing incidents that he said had called the peer review process into question.
In one study, for example, researchers submitted a plagiarized paper to 110 journals, but only two publications recognized the problem.
In another study, researchers examined 18 papers that had been published in peer-reviewed journals by a person who later admitted scientific fraud; they found that 16 of the papers had an average of 12 errors each.
One such error was that “the father in one family had his first child at age eight and the next at age nine,” Armstrong wrote.
(end Boston.com clip)
But who in the fold of worshipers of medical authority want to hear such things? Much better to pretend all is well. And that is pretty much what the leading medical journals do. They make a few changes now and then, but mostly they glide along burnishing their own reputations and admiring themselves in the mirror.
For us, though, this kind of news is different.
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.