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Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

blogs.bmj.com

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Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#31

Post by long_time_gone »

adolph wrote: post #18

Is this some vaccine hesitancy in disguise from BMJ? Stephen Lock, my predecessor as editor of The BMJ, became worried about research fraud in the 1980s, but people thought his concerns eccentric. Research authorities insisted that fraud was rare, didn’t matter because science was self-correcting, and that no patients had suffered because of scientific fraud. All those reasons for not taking research fraud seriously…

Is there a name for the phenomenon where an internet comment is guilty of doing the thing it accuses others of doing?

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#32

Post by birdyrooster »

injidup wrote: post #20

I recently had the privilege of trying to do the right thing when I identified fraudulent research carried out by an institution in Austria. The initial response of the institution was positive but when I pressed for further details on how such things could happen suddenly nobody anymore would take my call. The research was paid for by a private company to pimp a nonsense product. The research was never published in…

I guess if you don't even feel comfortable sharing the identity of any of the parties, we really have no chance to identify bad actors from good as a community.

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#34

Post by aqme28 »

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #4

Wouldn't this be the default scientific position? Or to take some of the hyperbole out of the statement, rephrase as: "is it time to assume that health research hypotheses are incorrect until a preponderance of data and reproducible studies prove otherwise?"

There's a pretty big difference between an "incorrect" hypothesis and "fraud."

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#35

Post by injidup »

birdyrooster wrote: post #32
injidup wrote: post #20

I recently had the privilege of trying to do the right thing when I identified fraudulent research carried out by an institution in Austria. The initial response of the institution was positive but when I pressed for further details on how such things could happen suddenly nobody anymore would take my call. The research was paid for by a private company to pimp a nonsense product. The research was never published in…

I guess if you don't even feel comfortable sharing the identity of any of the parties, we really have no chance to identify bad actors from good as a community.

https://shop.powerinsole.com/en/blogs/news/doppelblindstudie...

I actually bought one of the devices and took it apart on video. There is nothing inside except 4 magnets and a plastic printed card. No active circuits and no power source and no components such as resistors or capacitors and certainly there is no microchip inside.

edit below are links to pictures of the device and accompanying text as originally on facebook posted

=======================================

Hi Powerinsole I ordered one of your power chip devices and took a detailed look at it. My analyses is as follows. 1. There is no battery and no system for harvesting energy. All electronic circuits require an energy source and a lack of an obvious system for powering the device is a problem. 2. There are no components such as integrated circuits, transistors, capacitors, diodes or inductive devices that would be required to create a "circuit" or "chip". A "chip" is not just a random configuration of tracks. The tracks are there to transfer electricity between components that shape and switch the electric current according to purpose but given that there are no components what are the tracks for? 3. There are 4 magnets. Probably neodymium. They produce a constant magnetic field. They do not generate "frequencies". The device sticks to a metal wall like a fridge magnet and doesn't vibrate. 5. The tracks are configured in such a way that even if components were attached at the "solder points" nothing would happen because the tracks are all shorted together. Electricity always takes the easiest path. If all the tracks are are shorted then the components will receive no energy input. 6. After testing with a multimeter I found that the tracks on the "circuit board" do not conduct electricity. If the tracks do not conduct electricity there is no possibility of transferring energy to components. ( there are no components ) 7. The magnets are isolated from the "tracks" and each other by a plastic layer and glue. It is not clear what the relationship the position of the magnets to the tracks might be. 8. There is no NVRAM, magnetic storage, optical storage, ROMs or other known systems for storing information. So claims from PowerInsole that they load information onto the device is difficult to comprehend. 9. There is no crystal or LC circuit to drive an oscillator. Even if there was there is no battery to drive it and the tracks are all shorted and the tracks do not conduct electricity. Given the above observations I find it difficult to believe that the device can function as advertised. What you essentially have is 4 small magnets on a printed card in a gel cushion for 69 euros. If I am wrong about any of the above I would be happy to have a respectful and open discussion about your technology.

https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/163585013_1...

https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/163740448_1...

https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/164072709_1...

https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/164005668_1...

https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/164045289_1...

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#36

Post by diob »

hirundo wrote: post #29

I doubt most people understand the intensity of the incentive to mess with the data. In college I was a lab assistant for a professor who taught courses on research integrity and how to evaluate the quality of scientific papers. After thousands of hours of work on a study with routine 20 hour days collecting data, he wasn't getting what he needed to publish. At the tail end of one of those days I caught him with the…

I think it's more that the punishment for not faking it is too great. We need to be okay with following the scientific method and rewarding folks regardless of the outcome. Otherwise we're bound to see everything "succeed".

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#37

Post by nabla9 »

MauranKilom wrote: post #15

This article talks about "zombie trials" as if it were known to the reader what exactly that means. Anyone who could clue me in?

>I have chosen the word ‘zombie’ to indicate trials where false data were sufficient that I think the trial would have been retracted had the flaws been discovered after publication. The varied reasons for declaring data as false precluded a single threshold for declaring the falsification sufficient to deserve the name ‘zombie’,

1. Carlisle JB. False individual patient data and zombie randomised controlled trials submitted to Anaesthesia. Anaesthesia 2020; https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.15263.

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#38

Post by AnimalMuppet »

adolph wrote: post #18

Is this some vaccine hesitancy in disguise from BMJ? Stephen Lock, my predecessor as editor of The BMJ, became worried about research fraud in the 1980s, but people thought his concerns eccentric. Research authorities insisted that fraud was rare, didn’t matter because science was self-correcting, and that no patients had suffered because of scientific fraud. All those reasons for not taking research fraud seriously…

No, this is about all of medecine, not about vaccines for a specific illness.

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#39

Post by adolph »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #38
adolph wrote: post #18

Is this some vaccine hesitancy in disguise from BMJ? Stephen Lock, my predecessor as editor of The BMJ, became worried about research fraud in the 1980s, but people thought his concerns eccentric. Research authorities insisted that fraud was rare, didn’t matter because science was self-correcting, and that no patients had suffered because of scientific fraud. All those reasons for not taking research fraud seriously…

No, this is about all of medecine , not about vaccines for a specific illness.

Are "vaccines for a specific illness" not in the set "all of medicine?"

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#40

Post by javajosh »

birdyrooster wrote: post #32
injidup wrote: post #20

I recently had the privilege of trying to do the right thing when I identified fraudulent research carried out by an institution in Austria. The initial response of the institution was positive but when I pressed for further details on how such things could happen suddenly nobody anymore would take my call. The research was paid for by a private company to pimp a nonsense product. The research was never published in…

I guess if you don't even feel comfortable sharing the identity of any of the parties, we really have no chance to identify bad actors from good as a community.

"Naming and shaming" comes with risk - probably a lot more risk than upside. The risk is that the parties get something actionable, kind of like "probable cause" in criminal cases. The upside is maybe a small effect on a few HN minds that might remember this when considering this Uni's reputation.

The other risk is that it's an act that can easily be abused. It is very easy to level charges against someone without proof; somehow we tend to believe the first salvo (myself included). In this case it sounds relatively straight-forward, but it really is irresponsible to take a stranger's word for it.

So, if you really care, you might reach out to the OP and get the details. That eliminates the downside risk to the OP and acts as a shibboleth that ensure only people that actually care enough to look into it know the details.

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