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DiscoStu

Editor In Chief Of World’s Best Known Medical Journal: Half Of All The Literature Is False

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In the past few years more professionals have come forward to share a truth that, for many people, proves difficult to swallow. One such authority is Dr. Richard Horton, the current editor-in-chief of the Lancet – considered to be one of the most well respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world.

Dr. Horton recently published a statement declaring that a lot of published research is in fact unreliable at best, if not completely false.

“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.” (source)

This is quite disturbing, given the fact that all of these studies (which are industry sponsored) are used to develop drugs/vaccines to supposedly help people, train medical staff, educate medical students and more.

It’s common for many to dismiss a lot of great work by experts and researchers at various institutions around the globe which isn’t “peer-reviewed” and doesn’t appear in a “credible” medical journal, but as we can see, “peer-reviewed” doesn’t really mean much anymore. “Credible” medical journals continue to lose their tenability in the eyes of experts and employees of the journals themselves, like Dr. Horton.

He also went on to call himself out in a sense, stating that journal editors aid and abet the worst behaviours, that the amount of bad research is alarming, that data is sculpted to fit a preferred theory. He goes on to observe that important confirmations are often rejected and little is done to correct bad practices. What’s worse, much of what goes on could even be considered borderline misconduct.

Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor in Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ), which is considered to another one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, makes her view of the subject quite plain:

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine” (source)

I apologize if you have seen it before in my articles, but it is quite the statement, and it comes from someone who also held a position similiar to Dr. Horton.

There is much more than anecdotal evidence to support these claims, however, including documents obtained by Lucija Tomljenovic, PhD, from the Neural Dynamics Research Group in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of British Columbia, which reveal that vaccine manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and health authorities have known about multiple dangers associated with vaccines but chose to withhold them from the public. This is scientific fraud, and their complicity suggests that this practice continues to this day. (source)

This is just one of many examples, and alludes to one point Dr. Horton is referring to, the ommision of data. For the sake of time, I encourage you to do your own research on this subject. I just wanted to provide some food for thought about something that is not often considered when it comes to medical research, and the resulting products and theories which are then sold to us based on that research.

It’s truly a remarkable time to be alive. Over the course of human history, our planet has experienced multiple paradigm shifting realizations, all of which were met with harsh resistence at the time of their revelation. One great example is when we realized the Earth was not flat. Today, we are seeing these kinds of revelatory shifts in thinking happen in multiple spheres, all at one time. It can seem overwhelming for those who are paying attention, especially given the fact that a lot of these ideas go against current belief systems. There will always be resistance to new information which does not fit into the current framework, regardless of how reasonable (or factual) that information might be.

Here are just a few of the CE articles related to this subject:

One of the Most Important Scientists in the World: “Most Cancer Research is Largely a Fraud”

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Sources:

http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2960696-1.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964337/

teehee

http://www.globalresearch.ca/editor-in-chief-of-worlds-best-known-medical-journal-half-of-all-the-literature-is-false/5451305

Edited by DiscoStu
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As soon as I read the title of the thread Linus Pauling's quote referred to in that link to came to mind.

Mary Enig (now deceased) who was one of the first lipid scientists to document the dangers of trans fatty acids also made similar statements in some of her published works.

From a quick glance it would seem that much of the scientific research is fraudulent or misleading, but as Mary Enig pointed out it's not quite so simple.

She often made comments about how legitimate and diligent work was often re-written when the paper comes to the point of being assessed for publication. In almost all cases the body of the work is left in-tact but the abstracts are re-written to completely misrepresent the findings of the scientists who have written the papers.

Members of faculty that have degrees in a relevant field are often employed almost exclusively for this purpose. They re-write the abstract to fit the ideals of those who are funding the study and make the study seem like it has found what the funding entity desires - even though the data in the study contradicts what the abstract represents.

It's a commonly accepted fact that most people never read the entire publication and just skim the abstract and base their opinions on what the abstract implies. Doctors are one group that is especially prone to this habit as they simply don't have the time to read endless publications in their entirety. Journalists are another group easily manipulated by misleading abstracts and then re-print the findings without realising the implications.

It's not so much a failure of the scientific method as it is an indication of a corrupt corporate funded system.

Edited by Sally
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is this just a medical thing because from personal experience none of my papers have been rewritten before publication (except by me)

i'm in engineering btw

edit: although yeah journalists are definitely the worst, one person biasedly reports a poorly performed study and then the echochamber repeats this one article, so soon you have 10-15 media outlets all citing each other as evidence, and never actually bother reading the primary source

Edited by DiscoStu

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I think to a large extent it is mostly confined to chemical/medical research Stu

Engineering fields of study don't need to be assessed with the normal double blind approach that applies to biological systems that have a myriad of complicated factors which can skew the results.

In the field of Engineering a simple reconstruction of the documented protocol will prove or disprove the outcome - there are a lot less variable factors to skew the results.

When you get into quantum physics things start to get complicated because of factors that are not so easily replicated and modern engineering principles are starting to encroach into that field but for the most part engineering is a known quantity that is easily replicated. Some of these fields are starting to cross over in unexpected ways, so engineering in some respects is not what it was 10years ago. Nano engineering comes to mind.

These days we are seeing engineering of biological systems too, so it's a really exciting time where many fields of research are coming together in unexpected ways.

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I think this article needs to be debunked. The author has done no research into the scholars she references, Lucija Tomljenovic really?

I have quoted her bias, among her colleagues, in another thread. She has little credibility among genuinely respectful professionals, quoting articles written by herself and others spewing mis-information and deliberately chosen statistics:

And global warming is caused by the decrease in the number of pirates or: Why an inorganic chemistry journal should not publish a vaccine epidemiology paper.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/12/08/and-global-warming-is-caused-by-the-decr/

There is bias in every aspect of science, you cannot escape that, you can only attempt to minimise it. If the author of the article would like to better highlight the apparent huge corruption in medical peer review, perhaps he or she should use more credible sources from people who are actually respected by the majority of the medical profession. Lucija Tomljenovic is far from it.

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