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

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

#371

Post by account42 »

krige wrote: post #336
mr_toad wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I agree that the institutions can be expected to cover there ass Should we have that expectation? If a person does it we call it concealing evidence, intimidation, and perverting the course of justice. On the other hand, if they confess right away, we treat them leniently. Why should institutions differ?

Because institutions are not individuals. They do not possess a conscience, morality, or any other humane emotion that makes leniency possible and produce favourable outcomes.

You don't need to consider conscience and morality to implement harsher punishments for hiding evidence or not making things right after being informed vs. more lenient punishments when the individual or organization has shown to proactively attempted to remedy the situation and has taken actions to prevent it from happening again. It's all about making sure that the incentives are aligned with good behavior, even after initial bad behavior.

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

#372

Post by rbanffy »

I believe we are getting to the point where we need to create a broad category of crimes for misleading the public. Form lying as a trusted public figure (elected politician, government employee) all the way to publishing or submitting fraudulent research for publication. Countless lives were lost in the past year because people believed fraudulent studies about COVID treatments. Worse than that, government officials publicly supported those false reports and increased the damage they caused for political or even financial motivations.

The search for objective truth is a societal defence mechanism. Assaulting it is an assault on society itself.

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

#373

Post by Traf444 »

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…

From what I perceive one of the problems is funding.

This is not strictly related to what you write and more about research in general, but most researchers seem to avoid submitting negative results. Disproving something can be just as important as proving something, but it is seen as a failure in most cases and can negatively impact your future funding.

This leads some researchers to just hide their "failures" and some go as far as doctoring the results.

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

#374

Post by lmm »

tshaddox wrote: post #253
sjwalter wrote: post #203

What I want to know is how does this issue impact the notion that we all seem to buy into that we should "follow the science". Scientists themselves have a hard time "following the science". Add to it the observation that when an issue is getting lots of attention outside of academia, then there are usually some really strong incentives (profit, prestige) associated with doing the science and applying it (e.g., epide…

What is the alternative to following the science? Following people who are not scientists and who are explicitly making things up? This sounds a lot like "most plane crashes are due to pilot error, so maybe we should give non-pilots control of the planes."

Have a higher evidentiary threshold when it comes to results that contradict common-sense, or that suggest changing your current behaviour? Of course sometimes counterintuitive results turn out to be real, but most the time the "follow the science" people are getting prematurely excited.

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

#375

Post by Quekid5 »

OtomotO wrote: post #347
krige wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because institutions are not individuals. They do not possess a conscience, morality, or any other humane emotion that makes leniency possible and produce favourable outcomes.

is an institution not a group of people as well? People with consciences, moralities and other human emotions? If not, what's the difference to any other organisation such as, in an absolute extreme form, an army or a "terror"group apart from the agenda. Really curious, not trying to construct a strawman!

> is an institution not a group of people as well? People with consciences, moralities and other human emotions?

Yes, but the point being made is that in the case of organizations the whole doesn't necessarily have the properties of its constituent parts.

> If not, what's the difference to any other organisation such as, in an absolute extreme form, an army or a "terror"group apart from the agenda.

Not sure what you mean by this. Difference from what to any other organization and why that relevant?

You find immoral, illegal, etc. activity in institutions/organizations across a broad spectrum of areas.

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

#376

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

AlbertCory wrote: post #313
Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical and ethical standards are in complete free fall in European pharmacies. I was told by my vet to rinse my dog’s eyes in sterile isotonic saline solution. When I went to the pharmacy to ask for it they didn’t know what it was. They suggested using chlorhexidine wound disinfectant instead. My poor dog would have probably been blind or worse if I had taken the advice. But they don’t care, they just want to move p…

I sympathize, and good for you for not doing it! If I can suggest something to look into (i.e. not recommend!): I use NeilMed sinus rinse which is just saline and bicarbonate (so pH balanced). Use distilled water to mix it. You can buy it at most drugstores. This is not sterile unless you sterilize everything, but at least there are no funky chemicals.

Thanks. I’m sure regular table salt and googling the concentration would have done the trick, but there’s something to be said for those 30 ml plastic vials you break off a ribbon that you know have the right stuff and is sterile and stays that way until you use it. I don’t want to take risks with things I don’t have enough knowledge to make them calculated risks. But it worries me when some of the people we defer to wouldn’t even pass high school chemistry.

After having checked five pharmacies with nobody having heard of it the vet took pity on me and gave me a handful out of their supply closet.

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

#377

Post by fock »

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 have encountered a similar thing, with a university professor somehow supporting the finding that esoteric stickers are having an effect on patients, because they block EMF: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.0019... – this is bullshit (up to the measurement equipment supplied by the German EHS-community).

I think at least the university should reprimand this people, how did you get in contact with the people threatening to sue? As I'm currently a grad student (in an unrelated field) I guess I could have some fun pushing this as academic discourse.

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

#378

Post by jacquesm »

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've recently come across a 'for pay' report from a university as well that had holes in it the size of which you could drive a truck through, which was also used to establish claims of efficacy that were off the scale. This is probably quite common, and I really wonder why universities would lend their name to this kind of practice.

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

#379

Post by Fnoord »

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.

Admitting your mistakes is a strength, not a weakness. We should not expect other's to self-censor their shortcomings because if we do, we live in a fake world already. I mean, it happens, but whatever happened to honesty, the greater good, long term goals? Your take short sighted, short term benefits which will bite them in the ass eventually in the long run (like a can of worms).

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

#380

Post by throwaway81523 »

satellite2 wrote: post #359

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 p…

> The first thing I saw in academia is that scientists are almost never dishonest.

Was that health research, or some other field? It's plausible that health research is more corrupt than, say, theoretical physics, because of the immense amounts of money that can be gained from particular outcomes.

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