Scientic Medical Journals, JAMA, Fail Basic Credibility Standards

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Misty L. Trepke

http://www..com

 

Scientific medical journals like JAMA fail basic credibility

standards; medical journals become increasingly irrelevant

 

Monday, November 29, 2004 commentary:

http://www.newstarget.com/001890.html

 

The Journal of the American Medical Association -- JAMA -- and other

scientific medical journals have been caught red-handed by the

Center for Science in the Public Interest for failing to disclose

the financial relationships between study authors and companies that

might benefit from such studies. For example, one author of a study

published in JAMA that conducted research on kidney disease did not

disclose that he is a consultant paid by Merck, Bristol-Meyers,

Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer, all of which have products that

could be marketed to the public based on the information presented

in the study.

 

Here's how the con works: the study author receives cash from these

pharmaceutical companies, gets his study published in a prestigious

scientific journal, and then the drug companies can state that they

are basing the marketing of their product on published, peer-

reviewed scientific facts. The hidden fact in all of this, of

course, is that the author of the study is on the payroll of these

companies and didn't even bother to disclose that relationship to

the journal. It's good old fashioned corruption... but with the

stamp of approval from so-called " modern science. "

 

It isn't just this one study, either -- a review of JAMA articles by

the CSPI revealed that 11.3% of the articles reviewed had non-

disclosed conflicts of interest. For a journal that claims to be

presenting scientific truth in a non-biased way that is independent

of pharmaceutical company influence, that's an alarmingly high

number. And, of course, it's one of the reasons why these scientific

journals are increasingly considered to be lacking in scientific

credibility today. A number of journals were caught in the same

study, revealing that this failure to disclose conflicts of interest

is not merely something that happens at the American Medical

Association, but something that is widespread in the conventional

medical community.

 

None of this comes as a surprise to me, since I've been one of the

most outspoken critics of scientific journals for many years. Too

many of these journals are masquerading as stewards of good science -

- they pretend to show articles that are well-researched, that are

authored by people who have no financial interest in their

publication, and that have been put through a rigorous quality

control process known as peer review. But in fact what you often

find in these journals is the exclusion of articles that talk about

alternative therapies or pioneering therapies that compete with

pharmaceutical profits. You also find a closed network of old

school, closed-minded, conventional researchers and medical doctors

who primarily use the journals to protect their own belief systems

by only allowing the publication of articles that agree with their

narrow beliefs. In that regard, it's more like a dogma or a religion

than a scientific community.

 

Often, the so-called scientific truth presented by these journals is

really just a relative truth that has been invented by a circle of

influential doctors, researchers and journal editors who define

scientific truth by choosing what to publish (and what to ignore).

So, it is a rather obvious case of circular reasoning on their side.

In other words, to put it more plainly, it's true if they say it is,

and if they reject a paper, then it's not true. Scientific fact is

whatever they tell you it should be.

 

But that philosophy stands at odds with true science. True science

is based on a demonstrated curiosity about the way nature and the

universe works. A true scientist would look at the relationships

between the consumption of water and human health and they might

ask, " What is the role of water in the human body? " Or they might

look at plants and observe the miraculous nature of how plants are

tiny pharmaceutical factories that convert vitamins and minerals,

sunlight, and carbon dioxide into powerful medicinal compounds that

can enhance human health. True scientists would look at the nature

of relationships and how people who have more friends and engage in

more social activities tend to live healthier, longer lives than

those who don't. Those are the kinds of activities that true

scientists pursue, because they are curious about the way the world

works and how human beings can take advantage of natural laws in

order to enhance their health and quality of life.

 

But those aren't the kinds of topics that these so-called

conventional medical scientists pursue. They pursue topics

like, " How do we cure cancer with nanotechnology? " or " How do we

override the body's immune system and interfere with it using toxic

chemicals that poison the body? " They might say, " How do we take

this patented drug that nobody else can legally sell, and market it

to the entire world by inventing a disease, such as social anxiety

disorder, and then sell the drug at monopoly prices to people while

confiscating imported generic versions of that drug from another

country? " Those are the kinds of activities that many of today's

conventional scientists, doctors and pharmaceutical executives

pursue, and it's all one big school of people who are essentially

serving their own interests while invoking -- in a blasphemous way --

so-called " science. "

 

The bottom line to all of this is that the game is up -- these

journals are starting to be exposed for their deceit and their lack

of open-mindedness, as well as their failure to disclose the

financial ties between authors and pharmaceutical companies that

benefit from the publication of authors' studies.

 

And by the way, I almost forgot to mention that most of these

scientific journals are, in fact, supported by advertising funds

from pharmaceutical companies. So, you have a direct financial link

from pharmaceutical companies to these journals, such as the Journal

of the American Medical Association, and then you have the journals

either neglecting, or even perhaps suppressing the disclosure of

financial ties between authors of articles they publish and the very

same pharmaceutical companies that are writing checks to the

journals. I'm sure the American Medical Association realizes that

publishing JAMA is a highly profitable business activity. It

generates a lot of money, and one has to wonder about the priority

of that money when you're standing in front of the pharmaceutical

executive who's handing you a check for $100,000 or $1,000,000 (or

some amount that's even larger).

 

Personally, I don't trust any scientific publication that survives

based on advertising revenues from pharmaceutical companies. The

conflict of interest is so obvious as to be utterly ridiculous --

the journals need to keep their financial lifelines alive, and that

means supporting pharmaceutical companies that keep on sending them

checks. In that kind of system, there is no such thing as

credibility. You can't have an unbiased publication of any kind if

you're dependent on advertising revenues paid directly to you by the

very same companies you're supposed to be covering in the editorial

content. These medical journals are, effectively, bought out by the

financial interests of Big Pharma.

 

And, by the way, the whole concept of a medical journal is

increasingly irrelevant these days anyway. Thanks to the internet

and the launching of an open-source medical journal endeavor, we all

have the capacity to participate in open databases of clinical

studies. We don't need to be reading niche journals that are

financed by pharmaceutical companies and still charge readers

hundreds or thousands of dollars a year for access to their

articles. What we need in this country is open, public access

to all of the trials and studies that are being conducted, and we

need a more open-minded, web-based journal system, where pioneering

researchers and those who are engaged in activities outside

conventional medicine can get solid, scientific work published,

regardless of whether it threatens the profits of drug companies.

 

 

About the author:

Author Mike Adams is a holistic nutritionist with over 4,000 hours

of study on nutrition, wellness, food toxicology and the true causes

of disease and health. He is well versed on nutritional and

lifestyle therapies for weight loss and disease prevention /

reversal. View Adams' health statistics showing LDL cholesterol of

67 and outstanding blood chemistry. Adams uses no prescription drugs

whatsoever and relies exclusively on natural health, nutrition and

exercise to achieve optimum health.