"Bob Officer" [email protected] wrote in message ...
On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 06:40:16 -0400, in misc.health.alternative,
dr_jeff wrote:

On 10/19/10 5:08 AM, john wrote:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...-science/8269/

[2010 Nov] Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science He's what's known as a
meta-researcher, and he's become one of the world's foremost experts on the
credibility of medical research. He and his team have shown, again and
again, and in many different ways, that much of what biomedical researchers
conclude in published studies-conclusions that doctors keep in mind when
they prescribe antibiotics or blood-pressure medication, or when they advise
us to consume more fiber or less meat, or when they recommend surgery for
heart disease or back pain-is misleading, exaggerated, and often flat-out
wrong. He charges that as much as 90 percent of the published medical
information that doctors rely on is flawed......

That's the cool thing about science: It's self correcting. I wonder how
he comes up with 90% figure.

he worries that the field of
medical research is so pervasively flawed, and so riddled with conflicts of
interest, that it might be chronically resistant to change-or even to
publicly admitting that there's a problem.
......His model predicted, in different fields of medical research, rates of
wrongness roughly corresponding to the observed rates at which findings were
later convincingly refuted: 80 percent of non-randomized studies (by far the
most common type) turn out to be wrong, as do 25 percent of supposedly
gold-standard randomized trials, and as much as 10 percent of the
platinum-standard large randomized trials.

So 90% of the platinum-standard large randomized trials are right!

What are the known error bars for non-randomized studies?
What are the known error bars randomized small non-blinded studies?
What are the known error bars for large randomized double blinded
studies?

Exactly what his model shows, isn't it?

The article spelled out his
belief that researchers were frequently manipulating data analyses, chasing
career-advancing findings rather than good science, and even using the
peer-review process-in which journals ask researchers to help decide which
studies to publish-to suppress opposing views.
......Of the 49 articles, 45 claimed to have uncovered effective
interventions. Thirty-four of these claims had been retested, and 14 of
these, or 41 percent, had been convincingly shown to be wrong or
significantly exaggerated. If between a third and a half of the most
acclaimed research in medicine was proving untrustworthy, the scope and
impact of the problem were undeniable.

What the article doesn't mention is that science is self-correcting. It
found out that the articles were wrong. What about con-med (conjecture
based-medicine or alternative medicine)? It is not self-correcting,
except for what brings in more income.

Even his study is part of the process. the corrections are made and
flawed studies are so marked.

IIRC a study with food suppliments in chickens was pretty much
shredded here because it was flawed, not double blinded, or masked.

The article also made a bad assumption.
"If between a third and a half of the most acclaimed research in
medicine was proving untrustworthy, the scope and impact of the
problem were undeniable."

Not all medical research is used in every day medicine. Most research
published ends up being retested, and then retested again.

None randomized studies go on and provide the basis or rational for
small randomized studies, which provide the basis or rational for
large randomized studies.

The best thing about science is the right t challenge research and
papers. just like what happened to Wakefield.

Science may not be prefect, but it is the best Tool/System we have.

Science isn't perfect yet it holds itself up as the standard and everything else is wrong.
When 90% of studies have flaws, where do they get off casting aspersions on alternative health?


--
Carole
www.conspiracee.com
"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong doing which will be imposed on
them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed
by the endurance of those whom they oppress." - Frederick Douglas, 1857