Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise? • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by eloff » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

ta988 wrote: post #22

When you want to do a proper work, your grants and papers get rejected because they are not innovatove enough or don't go far enough. So it is not a surprise that people that lied in their applications about what they can realistically do also lie when it comes to reporting results. Unfortunately there is no way out. I stopped counting how many reviewers of my grants disagreed on what was proposed, one saying that it…

Peer review is shit. It's elitist, it's actively anti innovation and enforces the status quo.

Peer review should happen out in the open and not just be limited to academics.

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

#112

Post by injidup » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:37 PM UTC

dqpb wrote: post #84

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…

Can you be sued for asking questions?

I have an amusing letter from the lawyers working for powerinsole threatening legal action for asking questions and that I should remove all my comments from social media. It was also demanded that I pay approx 350 euro that the letter cost to write. My response was to invest in the cost of the device, tear it down on video and post the analysis to facebook. That was more than 6 months ago. I have not heard from the lawyer since. I'll happily go to court with a printed t-shirt with the text "where is the battery?" but it won't come to that I guess.

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

#113

Post by mcguire » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

"...Ian Roberts, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, began to have doubts about the honest reporting of trials after a colleague asked if he knew that his systematic review showing the mannitol halved death from head injury was based on trials that had never happened. He didn’t, but he set about investigating the trials and confirmed that they hadn’t ever happened. They all had a lead author who purported to come from an institution that didn’t exist and who killed himself a few years later. The trials were all published in prestigious neurosurgery journals and had multiple co-authors. None of the co-authors had contributed patients to the trials, and some didn’t know that they were co-authors until after the trials were published. When Roberts contacted one of the journals the editor responded that “I wouldn’t trust the data.” Why, Roberts wondered, did he publish the trial? None of the trials have been retracted."

I realize that meta-analysis is regarded as a valid research method, if not one of the best, but honestly, I don't know why. If the original studies are garbage, no amount of statistical manipulation is going to make them not-garbage.

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

#114

Post by ineedasername » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

injidup wrote: post #35

birdyrooster wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fac…

They had me at the work "power insole". Though I guess not in a good way. I expect a fairly meticulous definition of terms. If a piece of research sets off my marketing-BS sensors this early, it's usually all downhill from there.

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

#115

Post by OriginalNebula » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:40 PM UTC

injidup wrote: post #101

OriginalNebula wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you contact Arbeiterkammer, VKI or Peter Kolba?

I contacted and spoke at length with the Austrian Kosumantenschutz. https://www.arbeiterkammer.at/beratung/konsumentenschutz/ind... The product is clearly and at minimum a case of false advertising as there is nothing approaching a computer chip inside. However and though sympathetic the KS/AK said they couldn't do anything and couldn't refer me to anybody who could. I found this rather surprising.

Try to contact the other two. You can reach Peter Kolba here https://www.verbraucherschutzverein.at/Kontakt/ or on Twitter even https://twitter.com/KolbaPeter. He won the case against Volkswagen so if anyone can help you then him.

The University of Salzburg also has a "Ethikkommission" https://www.plus.ac.at/service/uni-administration/gesamtuniv... and "Kommission zur Sicherung guter wissenschaftlicher Praxis" https://www.plus.ac.at/service/uni-administration/gesamtuniv...

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

#116

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

LadyCailin wrote: post #104

WalterBright wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sadly amused by all this. The complaint I hear about privately done research is it's all tainted by the profit motive, and so research should be funded by the government, as then it'll be pure and untainted by selfish motives. Of course, government funded motives are just as tainted by selfish motives, if not more. Even worse, the people who make the funding decisions aren't spending their own money, so they have…

> At least with privately funded research, the people providing the money aren't going to fund bullshit fake research. Citation needed, first of all, but governments are at minimum accountable to voters. Private money is in no way accountable.

> governments are at minimum accountable to voters

Voting on how government spends money is in no conceivable way like you deciding how to spend your money.

> Private money is in no way accountable

It's accountable to the people who are providing the funds out of their own pockets. People do not like wasting their own money.

I bet you look at your own budget. You have to, otherwise you'll be in jail for bouncing checks and tax evasion. I also bet you've never looked at your city, county, state or federal budget. It's other peoples' money, so who cares!

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

#117

Post by RandomLensman » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

I think the first important question to ask is: is the research I am looking at directly applicable and relevant to other people?

If stuff is highly applicable and relevant, then the chance to get away with made up rubbish starts to drop quite a bit, because people will want to try for themselves - and fail. It gets more problematic when the application takes a long time to show effects, i.e. long observation periods - there more can be faked.

Most published research is largely inconsequential and not interesting to but a tiny few, so "fraud" can easily hide in there. Yes, it increases the sum total of knowledge, but that might be about it. I am not saying most research isn't done well, just that there isn't a way to assess correctness at scale and only high-profile results might get a fast check (and even there...)

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

#118

Post by yarcob » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

injidup wrote: post #35

birdyrooster wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fac…

Somehow I'm not surprised the University of Salzburg is involved. I remember a "less than stellar" experience with them that I was tangentially involved with.

It involved a research project that they stopped funding, but didn't want to let go. The only researcher who continued to work on the project wanted to take the project to a different institution where the project could get funding, but Uni Salzburg refused and said it's their project. They would rather have the project be abandoned than let it thrive somewhere else. If their name wasn't on the project anymore, they would rather have it die.

And not to forget, Uni Salzburg was also home to our most famous case of scientific misconduct where Robert Schwarzenbacher fabricated measurements using simulation software. The handling of that case was also interesting (they terminated his employment after verifying the accusations of fraud, but one guy from the union tried to convince someone from HR to delay some paperwork so they could later challenge the termination... crazy stuff)

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

#119

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

buitreVirtual wrote: post #72

WalterBright wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sadly amused by all this. The complaint I hear about privately done research is it's all tainted by the profit motive, and so research should be funded by the government, as then it'll be pure and untainted by selfish motives. Of course, government funded motives are just as tainted by selfish motives, if not more. Even worse, the people who make the funding decisions aren't spending their own money, so they have…

Actually, companies pay universities to conduct fake research that "shows" that their products work.

That's a good point. But if the companies are paying for research in how to build better products, they aren't going to pay for bullshit research.

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

#120

Post by Woberto » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

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

It took 12 years for the paper to be retracted, so I wouldn't necessarily say "suddenly".

Also, I think fraud is easier to miss (which may seem as it being tolerated) if it's something people expect or is not such a big change from the norm. For example, I don't remember the specifics but there's a story of some constant that was estimated a long time ago, and as people tried to measure it more accurately, those who calculated a value too different from the previous estimate were rejected.

I bring that up because in this case, Wakefield's claim may have been so outlandish as to provoke intense scrutiny, which, as the paper you linked to says, led to findings of fraud.