In light of Aubrey's comments, I'd just like to toss in the sugar vs. fat controversy, which appears to have led to such massive ill health among the population derived from government guidelines shaped largely by industry funded and scripted research.Kearns CE, Laura A. Schmidt LA, Glantz SA. Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents. JAMA Intern Med. 2016;176(11):1680-1685. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.5394I don't know that it is possible to accurately calculate the cost in human suffering from this.- PatriciaI must say, the responses to this question have been insightful.
They bear on the approach of the EBM community to fraud and misrepresented research and on the current Cochrane saga specifically. I must say that I find it odd, on an EBC list, that we even entertain comments made under the banner of Cochrane, without anyone batting an electronic eyelid.
Shadia Constantine asked for help compiling "a list of stories of research fraud, especially those which might have had direct patient impact". It is fairly evident to anyone who cares a jot about fraud and misrepresented research that the most serious examples, and those which have cased the most deaths and discredit to our profession are not the result of relatively uncommon serious fraud committed by a lone (usually male) fraudster. The key examples having nothing to do with FFP type of individual fraud as defined by those bodies who have tried so hard to maintain decorum in the obfuscation.
Nor are almost any of the most serious, and most impactful examples of misrepresentation ever retracted (to appear on a retraction watch "leaderboard"). Most of the serious problems involve corporations, and more specifically they occur at the University-industrial interface, involving academics who give tainted research a veneer of University respectibility (whilst never being exposed to retraction or any real form of punishment).
I have a personal interest in many of the examples given (I worked with Bezwoda as a student, I have a keen interest in the effect of beta blockers in surgery because this has personal impact on me) but in the grand scheme of things the examples given are mostly irrelevant and a distraction.
So in the examples given we here nothing at all of :
Vioxx - and the academics who "authored" misleading publications
Seroxat, and the academics who "authored" misleading and grossly falsified publications which have never been "retracted"
We hear nothing about Nancy Olivieri, Apotex, NMT Medical, Peter Wilmshurst, Procter and Gamble and Actonel publications and hundreds more.
Beyond the guff of theoretical epistemological discussion, I seriously wonder whether the EBM community have anything to say to our profession any longer.
Frankly, the examples provided are a shameful illustration of the discreditable route EBM has taken.
Aubrey Blumsohn
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--Patricia F. Anderson, [log in to unmask]
Emerging Technologies Informationist
University of Michigan
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