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Research Issues
Drug for Lou Gehrig’s gets regulatory nod despite questionable data
Despite questionable research data, a much-debated drug for Lou Gehrig’s disease has won US approval based on one small study, has renewed questions about...
Medical journals probe potential manipulation in heart research
Three medical journals recently launched independent investigations of possible data manipulation in heart studies led by Pennysylvania’s Temple University researchers, adding new scrutiny to...
Nobel Prize winner Gregg Semenza retracts four papers
A Johns Hopkins researcher who shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology has retracted four papers from the Proceedings of the National...
Not enough safety data or research on sunscreen safety, say US scientists
There’s a need for additional research into sunscreen ingredients and their safety, say US scientists in a recent report, pointing out that certain chemicals,...
Dump ineffective COVID drugs, Abdool Karim urges
Despite World Health Organisation guidance, drugs with unproven efficacy against COVID-19 continue to be prescribed by some doctors, who ignore the wealth of evidence...
New PEPFAR boss urges global health community to learn from African research
Dr John Nkengasong, new head of the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), has encouraged African researchers to build regional networks to...
The red flags that led to a massive Alzheimer’s research scandal
A neuroscience image sleuth has found signs of fabrication in scores of Alzheimer’s articles, threatening a reigning theory of the disease, and uncovering what...
Researchers caution about endemic sponsorship bias in cost-effective analyses
Sponsorship bias in cost effective analyses (CEAs), a requirement of most manufacturers when applying for insurance coverage, is significant, systemic and present across a...
Scientists sound alarm on badly run medical studies
A new research paper has signalled a crisis in medical research, with researchers saying “more than 60% of trials are so methodologically flawed we...
BJSM issues statement on plagiarism by its former editor-in-chief
British Medical Journal (BMJ) recently retracted ‘The time lords – measurement and performance in sprintingʼ, authored by former British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM)...
Famous vitamin C study ‘may have relied on fraudulent data’
The data underpinning a famous study of vitamin C for sepsis that some thought might put its author on track for a Nobel Prize...
Study labelling masturbation and homosexuality ‘abnormal’ leaves former staff seething
An homophobic article in the Clinical Schizophrenia & Related Psychoses, published following the sale of the journal to a new publisher, has left the...
Undeclared pharma payments rife among Australian medical researchers
One in four Australian medical researchers involved in drug trials failed to declare money they had received from pharmaceutical companies when submitting journal manuscripts,...
Withdrawn: Mexican Ivermectin paper claiming reduced COVID hospitalisation
The overseers of the preprint server SocArXiv have withdrawn a paper claiming that treating COVID patients with Ivermectin dramatically reduces their odds of hospitalisation,...
Publishing ban for researchers at tobacco industry-owned firms – Nature
A group of international respiratory societies has banned researchers associated with tobacco companies from publishing papers in their journals after the acquisition of a...
Facebook censors The BMJ: When gatekeepers go rogue
The British Medical Journal (The BMJ), one of the world’s premier medical journals, locked horns with Facebook and the gatekeepers of international fact-checking, after...
Ivermectin meta-analyses highlighted, again, the dangers of fake data
Some of the data that recently found Ivermectin was effective against COVID-19 came from clinical trials that “almost certainly” did not happen as described....
PLOS ‘expression of concern’ over study punting Ivermectin for dengue fever
A PLOS journal has issued an expression of concern for a 2018 paper that claimed Ivermectin could be useful as a way to control...
200-year-old race-based COPD diagnostic formula shown to be inadequate
A long-term epidemiological study reveals that one of the oldest, racially-based diagnostic formulas in medicine – used globally to define the severity of COPD...
AHA ‘Expression of Concern’ over study on mRNA vaccines and cardiac inflammation
A study just published in Circulation, flagship journal of the American Heart Association (AHA) has been flagged with an Expression of Concern, reports Retraction...
UK investigation into racial and gender bias in medical devices
The UK Health Secretary has ordered a review into whether medical devices — such as oximeters, spirometers and respirators — are equally effective regardless...
The challenges to collecting accurate COVID-death statistics in SA
The number of “excess deaths” from COVID-19 are often angrily disputed. The SA Medical Research Council’s Prof Debbie Bradshaw, explains in an interview with...
The high costs to a medical watchdog of challenging bad science
Days after a mysterious new illness was declared a pandemic in March last year, a prominent French scientist announced he’d already found a cure...
Ivermectin papers show limitations of ‘inherently unreliable’ summary data
The The demand for COVID-19 treatments has created a demand for meta-analyses by systematic review — a process fraught with risk, as evidenced by...
Noakes: Iconic study hid findings, reached unjustifiable and possibly unethical conclusions
Emeritus Professor Tim Noakes, in a study published in the journal Open Heart, has criticised the authors of one of the most influential studies...