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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?

#351

Post by oezi »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #240
jahnu wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One "hack" to get around that is to change your health app into a "beauty" or "cosmetic" or "wellness" app. It's a very different set of regulations.

Yep, I'd love to do that, but I'm squarely in the health sector, no getting around that sadly. I might end up cutting some of the main features to qualify as a lifestyle app though. Sad but better than not launching I guess.

Everything is dependent on your intended use. If you don't intend health use but just research etc then you are fine.

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

#352

Post by yarcob »

jahnu wrote: post #219
OriginalNebula wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, thank you! Austria has a weird thing with pseudoscience scams [0][1][2] and it needs to be dealt with. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belebtes_Wasser [1] The current Minister of Economy was working as an "energizer" https://www.diepresse.com/5395317/wirtschaftsministerin-schr... [2] During the construction of a hospital in Vienna, an "energetic" ring was built around the construction site for 95000 Euro. https…

Not to mention almost all pharmacies selling homeopathic rubbish. I find this particularly irritating given the ridiculously regulations and control around things like buying paracetamol or ibuprofen.

What ridiculous regulations are there with regard to ibuprofen and paracetamol? Are you talking about the fact that medicines are not allowed to be sold in supermarkets?

I think it's a good thing, since it's a pretty good guarantee that you actually get what you buy.

You can get ibuprofen and paracetamol at any pharmacy in Austria for a few euros without a prescription. And in every district there's always a pharmacy that is open 24h.

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

#353

Post by ghufran_syed »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #175
bserge wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pair it with: if it works, it's controlled. Meaning you can't get it without prescription and have to go through the tortures of a health "care" system.

This needs to end. I would take a pharmaceutical/drug related test (administered through the state), and it could be comprehensive; If I could renew my long term prescriptions. The pharmacist wants to see a blood panel before refilling, fine, I should be able to order one. (Only on long term medications (Blood pressure, diabetes, and most psychiatric drugs within reason) , and never antibiotics)

I think this is a fabulous idea and this kind of sensible approach to regulation could be applied in many different areas, increasing personal freedom without excessively increasing risk and third-party costs. For example, in finance, maybe the default could be that only fixed rate mortgages can be sold, but if you take and pass a rigorous exam and indemnify the government from any claims if you end up losing your house, then you can be sold an adjustable rate or interest-only mortgage. Maybe you could have default speed limits as we do now, but if you take an exam +/- agree to telemetry in your vehicle, you can go faster than the speed limits as long as it’s safe.

Particularly for my low-income patients who end up coming into the ER for a refill (or a complication of having ran out of their meds), I’ll often write a 3 month supply and 3 refills, so giving them one year of access to their meds without needing a doctor. I still strongly encourage them to get a primary doctor and see that doctor in order to get help with their medical conditions, but the idea that we should effectively coerce patients into seeing a doctor by withholding life-saving medications (“it’s for their own good!!!”) seems grossly unethical to me, and doesn’t take into account the problems poorer people have in getting good affordable healthcare. But I’m pretty sure my position is an outlier among emergency medicine docs.

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

#354

Post by brutusborn »

zepto wrote: post #346
brutusborn wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He talks about the case against science as well as bad studies like they are the same thing. Science is simply a method that can be done well or badly. The bad studies aren't fundamental to science itself.

> Science is simply a method that can be done well or badly Science as a word doesn’t typically denote “the scientific method”. It usually means the body of knowledge and the collective of institutions that claim to practice the method. The bad studies may not be fundamental to some abstract ideal of what science could be, but they seem pretty fundamental to humans doing science in the real world.

I completely agree that the term science has many meanings which include the overall body of knowledge which includes bad studies.

However I can't understand why bad studies would be fundamental to "humans doing science"? You don't need to take other research results as correct to do your own, so why does bad science need to be part of the mix? Can't we choose to ignore them or treat them with skepticism?

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

#355

Post by forcry »

arcticfox wrote: post #172
dpatru wrote: post #49

As shown both in the article and in the comments, scientific establishment seems content to tolerate fraud. But when research goes against big money interests, suddenly standards become very strict. See how Andrew Wakefield was treated. https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452

> See how Andrew Wakefield was treated. Are you implying that he was let off easy? Should have gone to jail, IMO: "The panel found he had subjected 11 children to invasive tests such as lumbar punctures and colonoscopies that they did not need, without ethical approval." Performing unfounded experiments on children while committing fraud should be treated as criminal, not simply reputation-destroying, IMO. https://ww…

>The panel found he had subjected 11 children to invasive tests such as lumbar punctures and colonoscopies that they did not need..

Here is what he has to say about it. (Not really justifying, I don't wish to go into an argument about this, which is really, a can of worms at this point)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEKghCUUlZg

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

#357

Post by nabla9 »

logicalmonster wrote: post #275
nabla9 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No results because vaccines are not accepted based on publications and peer review on scientific papers. They go trough completely different and extremely rigorous testing process where everything is documented carefully, documents are examined and double checked. It's great to see 168 comments before first anti-vaxxer comment.

> They go trough completely different and extremely rigorous testing process where everything is documented carefully, documents are examined and double checked. Rigorous testing is all well and good, but we do know how many errors crop up in scientific papers, right? A lot. The gold standard of testing is double-blind, randomized, placebo controlled studies and this is only done sometimes for vaccines, as far as I a…

Covid vaccines did go trough double-blind, randomized, placebo controlled studies with population size that normal scientific studies can only dream of.

As I said, vaccine testing is is exteremely rigorous.

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

#358

Post by lmm »

naasking wrote: post #194
robomartin wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the problems I have with the absolute freak show that climate science/global-warming/saving-the-planet has become. It is, at a minimum, a triangle of bad actors with one corner being politicians --fear-based vote harvesting--, the second being business --jump on the bandwagon and print money...facilitated by politicians who want votes in exchange for fear mongering-- and, finally, religious-based detra…

Not sure I'm following your point. If you weigh the bad actors and financial incentives of climate change proponents against the bad actors and financial incentives on the fossil fuel side, do you think the scale tips in favour of more honesty for the fossil fuel side or climate change side? There's no doubt groupthink happens in academia on many issues, but the need to displace fossil fuels really is very important.…

> If you weigh the bad actors and financial incentives of climate change proponents against the bad actors and financial incentives on the fossil fuel side, do you think the scale tips in favour of more honesty for the fossil fuel side or climate change side?

There's no honesty anywhere - or rather, the honest people get squeezed out of the field. Which is why the issue ends up so polarised.

> There's no doubt groupthink happens in academia on many issues, but the need to displace fossil fuels really is very important. Not just for climate change reasons, but overall human health. For instance, air pollution from fossil fuels kills tens of thousands of people every year.

Changing the subject like this is a huge red flag that you're using motivated reasoning, as you'd probably have noticed yourself if this wasn't such a political issue. It's a very small step from "it's important to displace fossil fuels even if not for the reasons I originally said" to "I'll overstate the effects of climate change to ensure that we abandon fossil fuels as quickly as possible to save thousands of lives", and once you do that all hope of finding the truth lost.

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

#359

Post by satellite2 »

I'm going to go against the general concensus that seems to be forming here.

In my experience, at any scale, you cannot resolve trust issues by reducing trust. When you reduce trust, people producing the science expect to get more scrutinized and determine they can afford to get less critical of their own work.

The first thing I saw in academia is that scientists are almost never dishonest. Science is a complicated psychological process as you need hope to guide your research and you need rigor to test your hypothesis. When you let hope take a too big spot in your mind you tend to publish your partially tested hypothesis as results and when you lack it you tend to get paralized or to work on predictable work.

And I saw this process multiple times. But I extremely rarely saw actual malice. Even when there was an incentive to produce bad science, you could see that the author genuinely convinced themselves that what they produced was riogorous and correct.

So like in the political arena, it's a vicious circle to reduce trust. And in the contrary it's a virtuous one to increase it. When most of the science is considered genuine, it becomes a much harder hit on any scientist to get its work shown incorrect. That in turn promotes more self criticism which is the cheapeast and most effective kind of review.

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

#360

Post by theteapot »

menzoic wrote: post #174
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…

It seems well intentioned, but I'm not surprised at all about the outcome. I don't think you can expect the institution to implicate themselves like that. You have to realize that preventing legal and financial liabilities is the #1 priority for institutions. Unfortunately this includes when they are wrong. Even if the employees are "good" their lawyers will advise them against providing any details like that and mos…

> I don't think you can expect the institution to implicate themselves like that.

Um what? It's basic ethical behavior. What has the world come to that someone can defend unethical, unprincipled behavior of a educational institution because "preventing legal and financial liabilities is the #1 priority for institutions ...", with the implication that therefore unethical behavior should be expected?

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