Day: 22 July 2021

Photoshopping, fraud and circular logic in research

by Mike Hearn It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement 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.Marcia Angell Check out this image from a peer reviewed research paper that supposedly shows skin lesions being treated by a laser: Left: before treatment for keratoses. Right: after they were airbrushed out. (image diff is available here) On being challenged the authors said:  The photograph was taken in the same room with a similar environment; unfortunately the patient wore the same shirt. The journal found this explanation acceptable and forwarded the response to the complainants. It’s becoming clear that science has major difficulties with not only a flood of incorrect and intellectually fraudulent claims, but also literally faked, entirely made up papers with random data, imaginary experiments and photoshopped images in them. Some of these papers are sold by organised gangs to Chinese doctors who need them to get promoted. But others come from really sketchy outfits like (sigh) the National Health Service, to whom we owe the masterpiece seen above. The British Government hasn’t noticed that its doctors are massaging ...

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