This is a bit off topic but it does apply to all areas of research including medicine and probably including a lot of thyroid medicine as well.
Academic Research in the 21st Century: Maintaining Scientific ...
liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/...
It shows how distorted and corrupt much of modern research is and the reasons for this.
A problem indeed. Corporations, food processors, big pharma and billionaires pouring money into chosen causes. Can't even trust charities to do the right thing eg Wellcome Trust supporting the EAT-Lancet report. I find I need to look behind the message to the messenger on just about everything these days. Exhausting. We'll be left with Go Fund Me! (But I'm in if you're looking - and of course the 'charities' comment does not include Thyroid UK - I've looked behind the message).
I would just comment, if people think we're part of this party, that we get no funding for virtually all our work, that two of the four of us are retired and do this out of interest with no sense of reward or entitlement and that our motive is a combination of scientific interest and practical indignation that because of bad science/medicine patients are being either damaged by lack of treatment or inadequate/inappropriate treatment.
Well, Diogenes, I'd be more than happy to contribute towards your research!
I think that continuing your research in retirement is the best and most honest way to do it if you still can do it and retain the appetite and interest in your discipline, seeing the internal politics, financing and other pressures that academics face in HEIs. Of course many are their own worst enemies, but there really seems to be no room anymore to do research for just the sake of gaining new knowledge, with no agendas behind.
I don't want to prolong this argument much further, but in my 13 year academic life, and additionally in my company-employed (another 13) and retired periods (30) I have well experienced an almost 55 year continuum of jealous sniping from a famous scientist with refusal to argue sensibly and accept the obvious, theft of ideas, being totally ignored and a good deal of jiggery pokery in all the fields I was engaged in - thyroid has been only one. I know well from first hand how ruthless, self aggrandising and selfseeking the medico/scientific world can be. If you don't enter from the right direction (i.e. belong to the "premier" groups) getting a hearing is extremely difficult. And that's our problem now - we don't belong in the cosy corner of traditional academe .One has to be tough in this life and repeat "nil desperandum"..
I worked in a university department with some very ruthless types like you describe, none of whom were doing any really cutting edge research just pedestrian stuff. They were insecure and frustrated that their early academic promise did not take them to the exulted heights they believed should have been their destiny! The fact that they were not up to the job seemed to have passed them by. And so much unproductive bickering and mischief making - a good mind put to bad use. Thank you for rising above all that awful stuff it can really drag you down. I legged it!
Yes, academia can be a very vindictive, snippy environment, prone to clique-building, and where ego-growth has no limit! Sadly indeed those with sharp elbows are the ones that go up in the world (ruthlessly stepping over everyone else) - "the cream and the scum rise to the top"...
But you are spot on in being persistently tough - and continuing to show the ivory towers how research must be done!
Will you PM me details for supporting your research.? Happy to help. I receive frequent helpful info from your posts.
Thanks irina1975
Also, I get a lot out of Thyroid UK and though in the US I pay my yearly membership.
We need to support what we believe in.
There are several good sites online for evaluating and gaining transparency for charities.
One I often check is charitynavigator.com. I've learned that some of the very well-known worldwide organizations that have been around for years and we assume are trustworthy don't fare so well under closer scrutiny.
I suggest that the news organisations don't exactly help with their wholly uncritical "scientists found that ..." reporting. They do not go further and ask cui bono? (who benefits?).
Sadly news organisations are just entertainment under another name, journalism is a lost art.
And to make matters worse, the "science reports" they present may well be verbatim press releases from said scientists or their press officers who either want to get a mention or two in mainstream media to demonstrate their "impact" and please Research Councils and secure further funding, self promotion or simply publicise the institution...
Many of them probably get their science information from the SMC - the Science Media Centre
The SMC tells journalists what to think and what to write about all sorts of science-related subjects. The SMC is a charity that does a lot of work that is to the advantage of the government and big business. They have "experts" on tap who will spin things the way they are paid to do.
sciencemediacentre.org/abou...
The EAT-Lancet Commission Report for example, had the following "expert" reaction from the SMC :
sciencemediacentre.org/expe...
Bear in mind that, amongst many other issues, that the EAT-Lancet "diet" is nutritionally deficient, has been planned with the idea of giving governments new targets for tax (e.g. meat), is intended to be helpful to companies developing fake meat and other frankenfoods which are made in laboratories, will leave dust bowls and dead soil all over the planet because there will be too few animals fertilising the ground, and will destroy environmental diversity in no time flat. Not only that, but it will make more and more people very ill indeed and will maintain profits for the pharmaceutical companies, while also reducing fertility and shortening life. With modern technology fewer people are needed on the planet to service the rich so reducing the numbers is to the advantage of the people who control the resources - but they probably want to specifically reduce the numbers of the poor, not everybody.
we need to fight back. I think we may be in for a better deal under a new monarch, if there is anybody on earth working hard to improve soils and food it is our Prince of Wales and look at the press he gets. People need to change their attitude toward him and look at what he is doing and not what the press is saying or we could miss an opportunity to have someone in a very powerful position to support us.
Good points although I was a vegetarian for decades and abhor animal cruelty and factory farming I can see the dilemma if you have no animals as you say how does the land get fertilised? How can you eat dairy products but not realise it means producing unwanted male animals and what can be done about them? etc etc whatever way you go there are problems. I think you are most likely right about the ruthless rich deciding they will have no use for many of the poor, after all they have done it for decades if not milennia.
I wonder what the US equivalent is?
They just want an eye catching headline I suppose. Never heard that Latin phrase before ta for translation 😉
Who said "Believe nothing of what you hear and half of what you read." ?
"Trust but verify." - Joseph Stalin (also attributed to others.)
Table 1 in your link is very depressing. I knew some of the problems, but not all of them. 
I do feel, despite the best efforts of honest scientists such as yourself and your colleagues, that the human race is heading for a new Dark Ages. The future isn't going to be fun.
Rudolf Heormann has something similar to say:
It is a political game.
If you read the comment of the president of the British Society of Endocrinology.
"The difficulty is that scientific evidence on the benefits to patients' wellbeing is inconclusive; it is possible that clinical trials to date have not been adequately designed to determine this," adds Dr Chatterjee.
"It's also a question of health economics; as T3 now costs so much more it has been suggested that evidence of its benefits also needs to be stronger," he says.
That is ridiculous nonsense. Since when would scientific evidence depend on costs. Evidence is evidence. If it was too expensive if might not be prescribed that much but that does not change the evidence. And if it is frequently used it becomes cheaper.
Those idiots dominate our times, there is not much we can do about it. An unrealistic generation who has already forgotten all the hard lessons from two Great wars. a new medieval century seems to be in the making.
I cannot understand why the NHS continues to buy T3 from a company that charges dozens or hundreds of times more than that charged in other countries.
I am convinced that politicians don't do anything about it because a) they don't care, and b) they receive donations either personally or to their political party from the manufacturers. The fact that one of the men involved in this rip-off got an OBE earlier this month makes that an absolute certainty, in my opinion.
I also think that senior doctors, such as those at the top of tree amongst endocrinologists, have become very political.
The same price gouging is happening here (US). My T3 copay has risen steadily month by month and now due to our Orange Toddler's government shutdown, some pharmaceutical companies (including, it seems T3) have temporarily stopped making new pills and are using their inventory.
This month I had problems getting mine filled and my pharmacist also told me about production. I was lucky to get my Rx changed to 3 months so I'm alright presently. Though the cost was high!
I feel the US is heading for some major upsets.
This article translates beautifully to medical and Big Pharma Research and Development. And guidelines and standards of care.
A lttle off-course: money as the great motivator.
It's been known for years that for hospitals (US) the three top revenue-producing departments are Laboratory, Radiology, and Surgery. Each quarter when revenue is reviewed if a department has slipped from its expected slot the Head of the Dept understands what is expected for the next quarter.
It's good to ask why tests, xrays, and surgery are necessary and is there a less invasive, less costly treatment to try first.
Thanks, diogenes
I grew up hearing the phrase 'all information is propaganda and all fact opinion' I tend to apply this to most stuff I read or hear and I I try to ascertain the truth in it by it' s consistency with my life experience. Our society has become so very academic and dependant on written thought when sometimes a bit of observation and common sense can cut through all the rubbish. In my experience as a nurse doctors were often to the last to relaise there was a problem with a drug or a patients had an unusual diagnoses as they were reliant on paperwork to guide their thinking. There was a dreadful drug called optimax when I first started my nurse training. It was supposed to enhance the effects of anitdepressants but the patients were in a terrible state on it. It was touted as a harmless milk protein, the studys declared it safe so the Drs kept prescribing inspite of the effect it was having. The nurses at the time in the hospital who were not so academic could see full well the effect it had and after a patient died every nurse in the hospital stopped giving it. We all just signed to say it has been given and threw it in the bin and then the doctors were being told that it was having no effect, so they eventually stopped prescribing. It was the same with my mental health condition. It was blatantly obvious to the nurses that I had different identitys but the medical staff could not take it on board as on paper it was thought to be so rare to be almost none existant. I have found heresay and personal observation much better ways to assess my health needs than any so called study. They are not personalised enough to start with eg my child had a school phobia and I was advised by GPs and OTs to not let him have any screen time before bed as this would inhibit sleep but I found that if he an hour away from the screen before bed he got more and more worked up and unable to sleep.I found via a support group for parents that children with school phobia did find screen time very soothing and advised not to limit it. The study advising against screen time to aid sleep had not been applied to school phobic kids so was bad advice. Most studys are like this they apply a very wide brush and miss all the individual needs. I find the best way is to ingnore all the science as much as possible, talk to family and friends and support groups like TUK and take things from there. It is all sales and propaganda anyway these science studys.
A few weeks ago, the Today programme on Radio 4 did actually have a feature about the skewing of results in scientific experiments for exactly the reasons that are being exposed in this report. However, despite this, BBC journalists continue to impart information from the scientific community without questioning, as others have said. In my own profession (publishing, including academic publishing), I too occasionally have to deal with the egos of academics and have to use a great deal of sensitivity when pointing out errors, omissions and inconsistencies. Some even argue against what is blatantly incorrect!
Thank you Diogenes for your (and our colleagues') integrity and honesty in a world where these values are sadly lacking.
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