Research misconduct is widespread and harms patients (from British Medical Journal)

[Octarine]

For those who remember my "scientific dishonesty" thread, this should not be a surprise.

"Misconduct pervades UK research"

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bc6f7204-3d1f-11e1-8129-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1jHGk2XOJ

UK research is plagued with misconduct, according to a survey of 2,700 scientists by the British Medical Journal. It found that 13 per cent had first-hand knowledge of UK-based researchers deliberately altering or fabricating data, while 6 per cent were aware of misconduct that had not been properly investigated.

http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e14 (requires subscription/access through university)

 

[FigerPuppet]

Disgusting. There should be a public registry for the filth that has been proven guilty of this kind of fraud: No grant money, no trust and doomed to a life of crappy assistant-jobs and humiliation.

 

[Octarine]

The most common problem is simply withholding of data (scientists rarely publish according to their experimental protocol). Pretty much every scientist has 'not published' data for whatever reasons, but typically those associated with publication bias - null results, unwillingness of journals to publish contradictory/ambiguous data, lack of print space so they cherry pick which sets of data they publish.

There was another study that found that most published trial results do not report according to (often prior published) protocols and usually have much watered down thresholds to make results sound more impressive than they really are. This is especially common in psychiatry which has one of the highest rates of publication bias of any science (can't remember the studies off hand, but do a google scholar search if interested).

 

[Octarine]

Oh and there was another paper too:
http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.d8158

http://www.anh-usa.org/big-pharma-suppresses-data/

But you guys knew that already. Like you knew that the majority of guys on the approval boards for both pharma and nonpharma treatmants have conflicts of interest. And you also knew that the majority of published medical results, from clinical trials or otherwise, have significant deviations from their experimental protocol design and substantial fudging of thresholds (eg largely reducing the clinical thresholds) is no barrier to having the study published in top journals such as Science, Nature, the Lancet etc. (all previously discussed)
You guys also knew that the grant approval process itself is substantially random. http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4797.full

It seems the success of science is more to do with serendipity than reason.

 

[Lateralus]

Oh and there was another paper too:
http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.d8158

http://www.anh-usa.org/big-pharma-suppresses-data/

But you guys knew that already. Like you knew that the majority of guys on the approval boards for both pharma and nonpharma treatmants have conflicts of interest. And you also knew that the majority of published medical results, from clinical trials or otherwise, have significant deviations from their experimental protocol design and substantial fudging of thresholds (eg largely reducing the clinical thresholds) is no barrier to having the study published in top journals such as Science, Nature, the Lancet etc. (all previously discussed)
You guys also knew that the grant approval process itself is substantially random. http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4797.full

It seems the success of science is more to do with serendipity than reason.

Hey, don't demonize all of science. It's not surprising that pharmacology would be the most corrupt sector given the money involved.

That said, this needs to be fixed fast, before the anti-science crowd gains momentum in their quest to take us back to the dark ages.

 

[Randomnity]

off-topic posts removed. Please keep your personal spats to a minimum, and don't drag them into completely unrelated threads. kthx.

 

[Mr. TickTock]

This saddens me. How long till this corruption actually effects the world? Science is pretty much what drives the human race. Corrupt it with scientific "politics" and you could really just screw the species as a whole.

 

[Antimony]

That's disgusting. I demand they be turned into secretaries.

Or wait...would they fabricate that information too?