Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?
July 5, 2021
Health research is based on trust. Health professionals and journal editors reading the results of a clinical trial assume that the trial happened and that the results were honestly reported. But about 20% of the time, said Ben Mol, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Monash Health, they would be wrong. As I’ve been concerned about research fraud for 40 years, I wasn’t that surprised as many would be by this figure, but it led me to think that the time may have come to stop assuming that research actually happened and is honestly reported, and assume that the research is fraudulent until there is some evidence to support it having happened and been honestly reported. The Cochrane Collaboration, which purveys “trusted information,” has now taken a step in that direction..........
Anyone with a thyroid problem which is dismissed, untreated or under-treated, and disbelieved probably has an axe to grind. I would include myself in this.
For example, various studies that have been done that allegedly "proved" that T3 is irrelevant in thyroid disease have often been manipulated to get the result that the researchers want.
And what about the research that "supports" TSH as the only measure of real importance and not treating hypothyroidism until TSH is over 10 and Free T4 is under range?
So to that extent every patient with a thyroid problem who reads this forum probably has reason to gripe about poor quality, possibly fraudulent, research.
You Gov is doing a chat on views on Long Covid...let's be quite clear I am not dismissing it...but there is long "x" resulting from other viral and bacterial infections. Where is the concern for those people? But what really gets me is the thousand and thousands that cannot get T3 prescribed and suffer "long-thyroid"...That was my comment in relation to the survey.
One thing does concern me about the article. I hope that country (of research) doesn't become a shorthand for trustworthiness - or untrustworthiness.
The journals which publish papers, and charge enormous access fees, do so for old rope. When a paper is published in a top rank journal, I think there is a heightened tendency to believe it is honest without investigating very far.
That is, there is no shortcut to reading and assessing each and every paper individually.
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