Fraud in biomed research higher than thought

Fraud in biomed research higher than thought

ARE biomedical scientists becoming more dishonest? That's one way to read a new analysis, which concludes that retractions for fraud or suspected fraud have increased tenfold since 1975.

(visit the link for the full news article)

[url=http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/27/1212247109]www.pnas.org
PDF report summary
Word Doc Table of retractions

Full report

A rather interesting study - plus I have discovered a new source for keeping in touch with just how many researchers succumb to the temptation to be "right," ethics notwithstanding.

A detailed review of all 2,047 biomedical and life-science research articles indexed by PubMed as retracted on May 3, 2012 revealed that only 21.3% of retractions were attributable to error. In contrast, 67.4% of retractions were attributable to misconduct, including fraud or suspected fraud (43.4%), duplicate publication (14.2%), and plagiarism (9.8%).

from: www.pnas.org...

It is apparent that among the institutions we have been conditioned to trust (the government, the press, schools, and so on) we must now consider scientific research as not above suspicion.

Incomplete, uninformative or misleading retraction announcements have led to a previous underestimation of the role of fraud in the ongoing retraction epidemic. The percentage of scientific articles retracted because of fraud has increased ∼10-fold since 1975. Retractions exhibit distinctive temporal and geographic patterns that may reveal underlying causes.

Even the retractions often reek of insincere protectionism to avoid institutional embarrassment.

Linked documents show some fairly devastating statistics.. and I can't help but wonder how soon they will be forced to "retract" this study because it creates an impression that many - MANY researches trusted collectively with billions in tax-payer funds from across the globe are truly more concerned with profit than reality.

I'm sure we'll get some dissent here... but ultimately, this data speaks for itself.


(click to expand)

Rates of citation following retraction of selected highly cited articles. Rates of citation were obtained from the Web of Science

www.newscientist.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

It has become clear that a lot of research is nothing more than either manipulating public opinion for the benefit of Big Pharma, or a sorry attempt by researchers to make a name for themselves by having their study published.

Every time I read of "A new study has now revealed...." I read it carefully, and because I took research design in college, I can usually find holes in the methodology, something I could never do in years past.

They call it "junk science", and it is becoming obvious just how corrupt science has become, which is a shame, because they are supposed to be incorruptible, and the vanguards of truth for the sake of furthering our knowledge.

Another symptom of corporatism invading every aspect of what was once sacrosanct.

The FDA adopted "Bayesian Statistics" to approve Medical things. No more clinical trials to prove it's safe.

Bayesian Statistics= "we'll look at the data as it comes in".

It was one of the tools on the Presidents belt to create jobs and money from nothing. Saves the Federal Govt $$$ by killing off the population early so they don't have to pay out Social Security, Retirements, Medicare.

Win-Win....minus the evil in it. People being maimed/killed.

reply to post by Maxmars


You have to be a fool, to succumb to the crappy propaganda that is sold to us by first the US government and then the corporate dictatorship.

I have never trusted the government, so starting from the top you can not trust anything in this nation that have links to money interest.

This is not new, research in the US has always been tainted by corruption.

For me it makes no difference in the amount of fraud because is always been there, what it saddens me the most is the hypocrisy about been tagged higher and bigger now like is something new.

reply to post by Pervius


While I believe that the FDA leadership is corrupt, the idea of analyzing existing or anecdotal data as it comes in is not a bad idea. It allows regulations to change as knowledge is changed, which I think is a good thing. It allows research to be done without deliberately submitting subjects to placebos as controls, especially when those test subjects could be dying or unduly suffering as a result. It allows us to obtain information about interactions from the real world that might not be seen in a controlled environment, and responsibly act on it. It prevents people from using the statement that "more research is needed", in order to perpetuate backwards ideas and damaging products.