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Corruption in Science Media Articles

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on science corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

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Was a USDA scientist muzzled because of his bee research?
2016-03-03, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/was-a-usda-scientist-muzzle...

A lack of diversity in farming and a related over-reliance on pesticides have triggered a host of negative effects, including the decline of pollinators, such as butterflies and bees. Commercial beekeepers continue to report escalating losses of 42 percent or more, jeopardizing $30 billion in annual revenue and our health. A couple of years ago, [Jonathan] Lundgren - running a government lab, winning awards from both his agency and President Obama - occupied the right position to aid in this crisis. He says he was doing just that when the trouble started. In October, Lundgren filed a whistleblower suit alleging that he was disciplined to suppress his science. Nine additional USDA scientists have been ordered to retract studies and water-down findings, or have faced discipline in retaliation for their work. Three of those scientists, beyond Lundgren, were also working on pollinator-related research. This dynamic of government scientists claiming suppression extends across institutions. Such disputes show how complicated the intersection of government, science and industry can become when billions of dollars are at stake. Bee declines, says Lundgren, are not difficult to understand.

Note: Read an article showing how the USDA is often bought out by corporations. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing science corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Pharmaceutical companies cause doctors to receive biased information about drugs costing hundreds of thousands of lives
2016-02-24, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pharmaceutical-companies-cause...

Dr Aseem Malhotra, an NHS cardiologist and a trustee of the Kings Fund health think tank, claims there is a systemic lack of transparency in the information being given to doctors to prescribe medication, in terms of the benefits of drugs being grossly exaggerated and their side effects under reported in studies. Dr Malhotra said the prevalence of pharmaceutical companies, which are profit making businesses being able to fund studies and drug trials causes biased information to be recorded and reported on in medical journals. This is in turn creating an epidemic of misinformed doctors, he said. This lack of transparency ... harms patients through the adverse side effects of drugs, Dr Malhotra said, citing an FDA report that found adverse events from prescribed medications caused 123,000 deaths in the USA in 2014 and 800,000 serious patient outcomes, which include hospitalisation or potentially causing disability. The FDA report also states that the number of adverse events from prescribed medications have tripled in the past 10 years in America. While the UK does not have the same kind of data, Peter Gotze, professor of research design at the University of Copenhagen, has evidence to suggest that prescribed drugs are the third biggest killer behind heart disease and cancer. Last year the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges launched a campaign to stop doctors from over-treating patients.

Note: The editor of The Lancet, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, recently wrote that half of all claims made in medical science journals may be untrue. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing big Pharma profiteering news articles from reliable major media sources.


US authorities distorting tests to downplay lead content of water
2016-01-22, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/22/water-lead-content-tests-u...

Water authorities across the US are systematically distorting water tests to downplay the amount of lead in samples. Water boards in cities including Detroit and Philadelphia, as well as the state of Rhode Island, have distorted tests by using methods deemed misleading by the Environment Protection Agency. The revelation comes as the growing crisis in Flint, Michigan, has prompted an emergency EPA order, the condemnation of Barack Obama and the resignation of a top agency official. Gamed tests help ensure that water utilities dont breach federal lead and copper rules. Dr Yanna Lambrinidou, a Virginia Tech academic, has disclosed what she considers to be evidence of deceptive practices ... after she sat on an EPA taskforce that reviewed federal rules on lead and copper poisoning. The taskforce ended its work last year, shortly before the full extent of the city of Flints problems with smelly, brown water hit the headlines, with Lambrinidou criticising the final report for failing to step up protections. Several cities have advised residents to use questionable methods when conducting official tests for lead content. These include encouraging testers to run taps for several minutes to flush out lead from the pipes. Such methods have been criticized by the EPA for not providing accurate results. If the water was tested directly from lead pipes, up to 96 million Americans could be found to be drinking water with unsafe levels of lead.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Bias In Industry-Funded Nutrition Research Is Real (And Scary)
2016-01-11, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/10/31/bias-in-industry-funded-nutrition...

People rely on unbiased research to find out important statistics about all facets of nutrition. However, recent research from the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney suggests there is bias in industry-funded research studies ... the full extent of which is still unknown. [Professor Lisa] Bero and her team reviewed 775 reports in the medical literature ... to determine whether nutrition studies funded by the food industry were "associated with outcomes favourable to the sponsor". "Most of the studies only looked at the [author's interpretation] of the research. If it were industry sponsored, they were more likely to have a conclusion that favoured the industry sponsor," Bero said. This latest paper [follows] Bero's previous study which found nutrition studies funded by artificial sweetener companies are more likely to lead to favourable results. So, what happens if more industry sponsored nutrition studies are proven to be biased? "If you look at other areas where the effects of industry sponsorship have been shown, like in the pharmaceutical research area and the tobacco research area, people have actually applied more consistent quality criteria," Bero said. "You'd also want to try to make sure that all the data is being published. In the nutrition area they don't have things like clinical trial registries like they do for drug studies, for example. So if you have a study that's unfavourable or parts of it are unfavourable, it's hard to tell if ... all of it has gotten published. That's a huge bias in the pharmaceutical and tobacco studies."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in the food system and in the scientific community.


Doctor-pharma industry ties examined in 'embarrassing' report
2016-01-08, CBC (Canada's public broadcasting system)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/doctor-pharma-industry-ties-re...

A report commissioned by the College of Family Physicians of Canada to examine the relationship between doctors and the pharmaceutical industry is being criticized. The document ... was completed in 2013 and only released this month after a number of doctors challenged the college board to make it public. In one of its key findings, the report notes, "There have been instances in which marketing messages have been portrayed as education and health care and pharmaceutical industries have attempted in this way to influence physicians' behaviour or practices," it says. "Evidence suggests that there could also be significant influence on the behaviour of individuals who may be offered gifts or other forms of support, even when the recipients perceive neither obligation nor influence." The report makes 20 recommendations dealing with issues such as conflict of interest, financial relationships, marketing and other relationships with the pharmaceutical and health care industries. But they don't prevent a doctor with ties to the pharmaceutical industry from serving in leadership positions, sponsoring certain events, or even from contributing to an "unrestricted" education fund. Alan Cassels, a drug policy researcher at the University of Victoria, is critical of the college for sitting on the report as long as it did. He suspects the college held it back because it's "pretty embarrassing."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the corruption of science and big pharma profiteering. Then read an in-depth essay titled "The Truth About Drug Companies" by acclaimed author Dr. Marcia Angell.


It's Misleading to Say Cancer Screening 'Saves Lives,' Scientists Say
2016-01-06, Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/its-misleading-say-cancer-screening-saves-lives-scien...

The phrase cancer screening saves lives is ... familiar to most consumers of public service announcements. But that advice may be misleading. The ubiquitous adage ... fails to take into account deaths linked to factors related to the screening itself. For example, prostate cancer screening is known to return numerous false positives, writes Vinay Prasad, an assistant professor at Oregon Health and Science University, and contributes to over 1 million prostate biopsies a year. The procedure is associated with serious harms, including admission to hospital and death. Whats more, men diagnosed with prostate cancer are more likely to have a heart attack or commit suicide in the year after diagnosis, he writes. A similar case can be made for breast cancer screening. Fully 60 percent of women who get regular mammograms for 10 years have been handed a false positive result at some point. Being told you have breast cancer - even if it turns out that the test result was incorrect - has been associated with psychosocial distress as great as a breast cancer diagnosis. A massive study of 90,000 women over 25 years found that the regular screening did not change the womens death rates. In fact, if anything, the screenings harmed some women: Out of every five cancers detected with the technology and treated, one was not a threat to the womans health and did not need treatment such as chemotherapy, surgery or radiation, all of which can cause serious side effects.

Note: Read more about routine over-diagnosis and unnecessary treatment of cancer in this New York Times article. And learn about the promising cancer research that has been largely suppressed by the medical-industrial complex. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.


Scientists assembled for Monsanto say herbicide not carcinogenic, disputing WHO report
2015-12-07, CNBC/Reuters
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/07/reuters-america-scientists-assembled-for-monsa...

A panel of scientists is disputing a World Health Organization report published earlier this year that concluded glyphosate, the world's most widely used weed killer and main ingredient in Monsanto Co's Roundup herbicide, is probably carcinogenic to humans. The 16-member panel, assembled by Intertek Scientific & Regulatory Consultancy, will present its findings to the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis on Monday, aiming to publish the study at a later date after peer review. Monsanto paid Intertek for the panel's work. Concerns about glyphosate on food have been a hot topic of debate in the United States recently and contributed to the passage in Vermont last year of the country's first mandatory labeling law for foods that are genetically modified. Critics say that industry-linked scientists are downplaying the risk to human health and trying to discredit the IARC report by casting doubt on some of the scientific studies that it reviewed. Ten of the 16 scientists on the Intertek panel have been consultants for Monsanto in the past and two others are former Monsanto employees.

Note: Read an informative article titled "Monsanto Charged With Crimes Against Humanity" on mercola.com. Read how the EPA used industry studies while ignoring independent studies to declare Roundup safe. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing GMO news articles from reliable major media sources.


EPA Used Monsantos Research to Give Roundup a Pass
2015-11-03, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/03/epa-used-monsanto-funded-research/

The Environmental Protection Agency concluded in June that there was no convincing evidence that glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the U.S. and the world, is an endocrine disruptor. The decision was based almost entirely on pesticide industry studies. Most of the studies were sponsored by Monsanto or an industry group called the Joint Glyphosate Task Force. Of the small minority of independently funded studies that the agency considered in determining whether the chemical poses a danger to the endocrine system, three of five found that it did. One, for instance, found that exposure to glyphosate-Roundup may induce significant adverse effects on the reproductive system of male Wistar rats. Another concluded that low and environmentally relevant concentrations of glyphosate possessed estrogenic activity. And a review of the literature turns up many more peer-reviewed studies finding glyphosate can interfere with hormones. Many of the industry-funded studies contained data that suggested that exposure to glyphosate had serious effects. Yet in each case, sometimes even after animals died, the scientists found reasons to discount the findings or to simply dismiss them. Having companies fund and perform studies that affect them financially [is] the standard practice at EPA. The International Agency for Research on Cancer labeled glyphosate a probable carcinogen in March.

Note: Read an excellent mercola.com article titled "GMO cookie is crumbling." Monsanto is trying to stop the state of California from listing Glyphosate as carcinogenic. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing GMO news articles from reliable major media sources.


How Science Helps Us Find the Good
2015-10-24, Daily Good
http://www.dailygood.org/story/1153/how-science-helps-us-find-the-good-jeremy...

In a study published in the January edition of the journal Mindfulness, psychologists ... asked 313 adults if they had helped anyone during the previous week. Eighty-five percent said they had by, say, listening to a friends problems, babysitting, donating to charity, or volunteering. This small study reveals a truth that is consistently demonstrated in many domains of research: We care deeply for one other, and ... would rather help our fellow beings than not. Even more, the science shows that refusing to help others can have debilitating, long-term mental and physical consequences for ourselves. Isolation hurts, physically; so does aggression. Every angry word we utter fries neurons and wears out our hearts. Heres an experiment you can perform right now: Think about something stressful that happened to you during the past week. Now scan your body: How does your chest, stomach, or neck feel? Then think about something good that happened during the same period, however small. Now what happens in your body? Did you feel any difference? The research predicts that the stressful memory caused you physical discomfort. Your tight chest and clenched stomach doesnt make the world a better place. So what can you do? Science has an answer, and it starts with counting ... the good things in life. That doesnt mean we ignore the bad. But all too often our negativity bias leads us to see only the bad, in other people as well as in ourselves. By counting the good things, we see reality more clearly.

Note: The new site Greater Good in Action offers concrete, research-tested practices for individuals to cultivate strengths like awe, gratitude, empathy, and compassion.


CIA torture survivors sue psychologists who designed infamous program
2015-10-13, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/13/cia-torture-survivors-sue-psyc...

Survivors of CIA torture have sued the contractor psychologists who designed one of the most infamous programs of the post-9/11 era. In an extraordinary step, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen now face a federal lawsuit for their role in convincing the CIA to subject terror suspects to mock drowning, painful bodily contortions, sleep and dietary deprivation and other methods long rejected by much of the world as torture. In practice, CIA torture meant disappearances, mock executions, anal penetration ... and at least one man who froze to death, according to a landmark Senate report last year. On behalf of torture survivors ... as well as a representative of the estate of Gul Rahman who froze to death in a CIA black site in Afghanistan the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the suit against Mitchell and Jessen on Tuesday in a federal court in Washington state. The suit calls the torture program a joint criminal enterprise and a war crime in which the CIA, Mitchell and Jessen colluded and from which Mitchell and Jessen financially profited. Although numerous US government investigations have pierced the veneer of secrecy around the torture program, the programs government architects have faced no legal reprisal. A Justice Department inquiry ended in 2012 without prosecutions. The new lawsuit, aimed not at government officials but the contractors Mitchell and Jessen, aims to break the trend.

Note: For more along these lines, read about how the torture program fits in with a long history of human experimentation by corrupt intelligence agencies working alongside unethical scientists. For more, see this list of programs that treated humans as guinea pigs.


Is Money Corrupting Research?
2015-10-09, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/opinion/is-money-corrupting-research.html?_r=0

The integrity of research and expert opinions in Washington came into question last week, prompting the resignation of Robert Litan, an economist, from his position as a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution. Senator Elizabeth Warren raised the issue of a conflict of interest in Mr. Litans testimony before a Senate committee. The testimony was based on a paper Mr. Litan had prepared for the Capital Group, a mutual fund company. Mr. Litan disclosed that the Capital Group, which has a stake in the debate, had funded his paper, but he did not disclose that it had also commissioned it. At stake is the integrity of the research process and the trust the nation puts in experts, who advise governments and testify in Congress. Had [Litan's] conclusions not pleased the Capital Group, it would probably have found a more compliant expert. And the reputation of not being cooperative would have haunted Mr. Litans career as a consultant. The practice of bending an opinion for money is so widespread as to be the norm. By shedding light on how funding of research can affect its content, Senator Warren increased the reputational penalty for experts who bend to special interests. But we need two more changes. Congressional testimony and policy papers should be posted online at least two weeks in advance of a hearing and open for comments. And all expert witnesses should be disclosed to the public, with a time delay if needed for confidentiality.

Note: Read more about how big money buys off institutions democracy depends on. Then see these concise summaries of deeply revealing corporate corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


How Monsanto Mobilized Academics to Pen Articles Supporting GMOs
2015-10-03, Washington Post/Bloomberg
http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-NVJVRQ6K50YD01-051JNB3N5BMLOQH...

Monsanto Co.s undisclosed recruitment of scientists from Harvard University, Cornell University and three other schools to write about the benefits of plant biotechnology is drawing fire from opponents. Monsanto says its in regular contact with public-sector scientists as it tries to elevate public dialog on genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit group funded by the Organic Consumers Association that obtained e-mails under the Freedom of Information Act, says correspondence revealing Monsantos actions shows the corporate control of science and how compliant some academics are. The articles have become the latest flashpoint in an information war being waged over plant biotechnology. The articles in question appeared on the Genetic Literacy Projects website in a series called GMO - Beyond the Science. Eric Sachs, who leads Monsantos scientific outreach, wrote to eight scientists to pen a series of briefs aimed at influencing public policy, GM crop regulation and consumer acceptance. Five of them obliged. University of Florida Professor Kevin Folta said he agreed to write Anti-GMO Activism and Its Impact on Food Security because communicating science to the public is his job. Folta has faced public criticism since the New York Times ... reported last month about his communications with Monsanto and a $25,000 donation to the science communication program he runs.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the corruption of science and the controversy surrounding GMOs.


Cancer patients may need better prep for chemo side-effects
2015-09-18, CBC/Reuters
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cancer-patients-may-need-better-prep-for-chemo-...

Cancer patients need to be prepared for serious side effects from chemotherapy, and hospitalization is one that happens much more often in the real world than in drug trials, according to a new study. Researchers found that people with advanced lung cancer receiving chemotherapy in real-world settings were almost eight times more likely to be hospitalized during treatment than those participating in clinical trials. What's more, very few clinical trials even report how often participants are hospitalized during the research, the study authors found. "Clinical trials should be routinely reporting their hospitalization rates so we know what to expect," said senior author Dr. Monika Krzyzanowska, a medical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto, Canada. Krzyzanowska and her colleagues write in JAMA Oncology that the number of times a person goes to the hospital with treatment complications is important to the patient and to the hospital. The researchers suggest several possible explanations for the differences in hospitalization rates. First, the patients in highly selective clinical trials are different from real-world patients. In this study, people receiving chemotherapy in real-world settings were also older, on average, than those in clinical trials.

Note: While big pharma profits from hiding the negative effects of their drugs, there is some promising cancer research underway, some of which is being suppressed to keep the cash cow flowing for big pharma.


Study 329: Antidepressant trial's upended results show need for sharing all data
2015-09-17, International Business Times
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/study-329-antidepressant-trials-upended-results-show...

In 2001, a "landmark" study published in the prestigious Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry purported to show the safety and effectiveness of using a common antidepressant to treat adolescents. The original published findings were biased and misleading. Known as Study 329, the randomised controlled trial ... was funded by SmithKline Beecham now GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) the manufacturer of paroxetine. The research has been repeatedly criticised, and there have been numerous calls for it to be retracted. To re-analyse the evidence of effectiveness and safety of paroxetine, we used documents posted online by GSK. We also had access to other publicly available documents and individual participant data. We found that paroxetine [Paxil] was no more effective than a placebo, which is the opposite of the claim in the original paper. We also found significant increases in harms with both paroxetine and imipramine, [another antidepressant]. Compared with the placebo group, the paroxetine group had more than twice as many severe adverse events, and four times as many psychiatric adverse events, including suicidal behaviours and self-harm. And the imipramine group had significantly more heart problems. Our re-analysis ... identified ten strategies used by researchers in this clinical trial to minimise apparent harms. More importantly, our findings show influential peer-reviewed research published in leading medical journals can be seriously misleading.

Note: We all know that clinical trial are skewed when they are sponsored by drug companies, but here is undeniable proof of this published in the UK's most respected medical journal. See this key study on the website of the British Medical Journal. Then don't miss that amazing documentary "Bought" available for free viewing.


Food Industry Enlisted Academics in G.M.O. Lobbying War, Emails Show
2015-09-05, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/food-industry-enlisted-academics-in-gmo-...

Corporations have poured money into universities to fund research for decades, but now, the debate over bioengineered foods has escalated into a billion-dollar food industry war. Companies like Monsanto are squaring off against major organic firms like Stonyfield Farm. Both sides have aggressively recruited academic researchers. The biotech industry has published dozens of articles, under the names of prominent academics, that in some cases were drafted by industry consultants. Monsanto and its industry partners have also passed out an undisclosed amount in special grants to scientists ... to help with biotechnology outreach and to travel around the country to defend genetically modified foods. The moves by Monsanto, in an alliance with the Biotechnology Industry Organization and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, are detailed in thousands of pages of emails that were at first requested by the nonprofit group U.S. Right to Know, which receives funding from the organic foods industry. The emails show how academics have shifted from researchers to actors in lobbying and corporate public relations campaigns. An inner circle of [biotech] industry consultants, lobbyists and executives ... devised strategy on how to block state efforts to mandate G.M.O. labeling. The opponents of genetically modified foods have used their own creative tactics, although their spending on lobbying and public relations amounts to a tiny fraction of that of biosciences companies.

Note: Read an article which takes it even deeper and shows what the NYT left out. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the corruption of science and the controversy surrounding GMOs.


Many Psychology Findings Not as Strong as Claimed, Study Says
2015-08-27, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/science/many-social-science-findings-not-as...

A painstaking yearslong effort to reproduce 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals has found that more than half of the findings did not hold up when retested. The analysis was done by research psychologists, many of whom volunteered their time to double-check what they considered important work. Their conclusions, reported Thursday in the journal Science, have confirmed the worst fears of scientists. The vetted studies were considered part of the core knowledge by which scientists understand the dynamics of personality, relationships, learning and memory. More than 60 of the studies did not hold up. The new analysis, called the Reproducibility Project, found no evidence of fraud or that any original study was definitively false. Rather, it concluded that the evidence for most published findings was not nearly as strong as originally claimed. Dr. John Ioannidis, a director of Stanford Universitys Meta-Research Innovation Center ... said the problem could be even worse in other fields, including cell biology, economics, neuroscience, clinical medicine, and animal research. The report appears at a time when the number of retractions of published papers is rising sharply in a wide variety of disciplines. Scientists have pointed to a hypercompetitive culture across science that ... provides little incentive for researchers to replicate the findings of others, or for journals to publish studies that fail to find a splashy result.

Note: The editor of a top medical journal recently suggested that half all of scientific literature may simply be untrue. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in science.


No, You Do Not Have to Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day
2015-08-24, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasse...

Every summer we are inundated with news media reports warning that ... otherwise healthy adults and children are walking around dehydrated, even that dehydration has reached epidemic proportions. Lets put these claims under scrutiny. I was a co-author of a paper back in 2007 in the BMJ on medical myths. The first myth was that people should drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day. The source of this myth [may be] a 1945 Food and Nutrition Board recommendation that said people need about 2.5 liters of water a day. The sentence that followed closely behind ... read, Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods. Water is present in fruits and vegetables. Its in juice, its in beer, its even in tea and coffee. Before anyone writes me to tell me that coffee is going to dehydrate you, research shows thats not true either. A significant number of advertisers and news media reports are trying to convince you otherwise. Bottled water sales continue to increase. More recent studies [continue] to declare huge numbers of children to be dehydrated. A 2012 study in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism [claimed] that almost two-thirds of French children werent getting enough water. Another in the journal Public Health Nutrition [declared] that almost two-thirds of children in Los Angeles and New York City werent getting enough water. The first study was funded by Nestl Waters; the second by Nestec, a Nestl subsidiary. There is no formal recommendation for a daily amount of water people need.

Note: The complete article above details how normal water consumption has been redefined by dubious science to appear insufficient. For more along these lines, see the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.


Major publisher retracts 64 scientific papers in fake peer review outbreak
2015-08-18, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/18/outbreak-of-fake...

Peer review is supposed to be the pride of the rigorous academic publishing process. But increasingly journals are finding out that those supposedly authoritative checks are being rigged. In the latest episode of the fake peer review phenomenon, one of the worlds largest academic publishers, Springer, has retracted 64 articles from 10 of its journals after discovering that their reviews were linked to fake e-mail addresses. The announcement comes nine months after 43 studies were retracted by BioMed Central (one of Springers imprints) for the same reason. Retraction Watch co-founder Ivan Oransky ... said he didnt know of any instances of retractions for faked peer reviews before 2012. In a report for the journal Nature last fall, Oransky and his colleagues told the story of a ... researcher who wrote peer reviews for 28 of his own papers. Investigations ... have also uncovered a number of services selling names and contact information for made-up experts guaranteed to give an expedited, positive review. In a statement on its Web site in February, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) detailed these agencies systematic, inappropriate attempts to manipulate the process. COPEs chair Ginny Barbour wrote in December, The uncovering of companies systematically manipulating publications, by the use of fake reviewers and more, offers an alarming glimpse into what can happen if reward systems are implemented with no thought or oversight.

Note: The editor of a top medical journal recently suggested that half all of scientific literature may simply be untrue. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in science.


Japan revisits its darkest moments where American POWs became human experiments
2015-08-13, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/13/japan-revisits-its-darkest-mome...

In 1945, as a first-year student at Kyushu Imperial Universitys medical school in southern Japan, [Toshio] Tono became an unwilling witness to atrocities. Just weeks after he began his studies, a US B-29 Superfortress crashed in northern Kyushu island. The [surviving] airmen were rounded up by police and placed in military custody. The prisoners were led to believe they were going to receive treatment for their injuries. But over the following three weeks, they were to be subjected to a depraved form of pathology at the medical school procedures to which Tono is the only surviving witness. According to testimony ... at the Allied War Crimes Tribunals, they injected one anaesthetised prisoner with seawater. Other airmen had parts of their organs removed, with one deprived of an entire lung. In another experiment, doctors drilled through the skull of a live prisoner. The experiments had absolutely no medical merit, [Tono] said. They were being used to inflict as cruel a death as possible on the prisoners. Of the 30 Kyushu University doctors and military staff who stood trial in 1948, 23 were convicted of vivisection and the wrongful removal of body parts. But they were never punished. President Truman issued an executive order that led to freedom for imprisoned war criminals. By the end of 1958, all Japanese war criminals had been released and began reinventing themselves, some as mainstream politicians, under their new, US-authored constitution.

Note: The German Nazis conducted similarly horrifying experiments on humans, as described in this Harper's Magazine article. Many of the Nazi scientists involved were secretly brought to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip. And according to this disturbing essay of a survivor, Nazi torturers were brought to the US to train CIA to train operatives in how to create multiple personality super spies through torture, drugs, and hypnosis.


Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets
2015-08-09, New York Times
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift...

Coca-Cola, the worlds largest producer of sugary beverages, is backing a new science-based solution to the obesity crisis: To maintain a healthy weight, get more exercise and worry less about cutting calories. Health experts say this message is misleading and part of an effort by Coke to deflect criticism about the role sugary drinks have played in the spread of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, [and] convince the public that physical activity can offset a bad diet despite evidence that exercise has only minimal impact on weight compared with what people consume. Coca-Colas sales are slipping, and theres this huge political and public backlash against soda, with every major city trying to do something to curb consumption, said Michele Simon, a public health lawyer. This is a direct response. Cokes [campaign] is not the only example of corporate-funded research and advocacy to come under fire lately. The American Society for Nutrition and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics have been criticized by public health advocates for forming partnerships with companies such as Kraft Foods, McDonalds, PepsiCo and Hersheys. Dietitians have also faced criticism for taking payments from Coke to present the companys soda as a healthy snack. A recent analysis of beverage studies ... found that those funded by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, the American Beverage Association and the sugar industry were five times more likely to find no link between sugary drinks and weight gain than studies whose authors reported no financial conflicts.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the corruption of science and the manipulation of public perception.


Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.