UNSOUND SCIENCE

R rhisiart at earthlink.net
Wed Jun 12 12:44:02 PDT 2002


it's been my sad experience that the one who pays for research often calls the tune. and the financial sponsor of research is seldom mentioned.

for example, for decades the sugar companies tried to get researchers to say that sugar is good for you. they often paid for research but the researchers had integrity and found that sugar had no nutritious value and could be dangerous to people. finally, after spending lots of money, the sugar companies found what they wanted: researchers who could be bought. naturally, US society had to change into its currently dominant social darwinist form before the sugar companies hit pay dirt in the "scientific" community.

R

from PR Watch:

WHEN PEER REVIEW YIELDS UNSOUND SCIENCE

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/11/health/policy/11DOC.html?ex=1024815781&ei =1&en=bb8a3aca209fabf6

As we report in our book Trust Us, We're Experts, 'peer review' is

a process "in which panels of experts are convened to pass

judgement on the work of other researchers. ... In theory, the

process of peer review offers protection against scientific errors

and bias. In reality, it has proven incapable of filtering out the

influence of governmental and corporate funders, whose biases often

affect research outcome." Lawrence K. Altman examined the issue in

the aftermath of a recent meeting and "the news was grim.

Researchers reported considerable evidence that many statistical

and methodological errors were common in published papers and that

authors often failed to discuss the limitations of their findings.

Even the press releases that journals issue to steer journalists to

report peer reviewed papers often exaggerate the perceived

importance of findings and fail to highlight important caveats and

conflicts of interest."

SOURCE: New York Times, June 11, 2002 More web links related to this story are available at: http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2002.html#1023768000

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