Researchers who are being paid by the companies whose products they are supposed to be studying can and do manipulate results to make the product look better, more effective and safer. It happens all the time. And the media just reports what they are told without independent investigation. Then, doctors and the general community make decisions based upon this misinformation. It’s been happening for decades, yet the government and the media wonder why people would question what we’ve been told when the corruption and collusion between drug companies and ‘research’ is so blatant!
“Forty percent of the abstracts in scientific papers and 47 percent of the press releases contained some kind of “spin,” which they defined as “specific reporting strategies (intentional or unintentional) emphasizing the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment.” The main source of this spin, they concluded, was the scientific papers themselves. News reports that contained spin, they added, were mainly parroting the same hype found in the original studies.”
Scientists “Spin” Results – The Scientist Magazine®.
Which scientific papers were assessed? All? None? Some? Fringe? Mainstream? Who is the ‘they’ responsible for this study? Mainstream journals and scientists don’t generally issue press releases for their studies. It sounds to me like very little useful can be drawn from this post.
Did you really say this:
Sian, you need to do some research. Press releases are one of the most common ways for mainstream journals and scientists to spin their information. This report is from The Scientist magazine which is about as mainstream as they come. Perhaps read some of the thousands of references on this and other subjects concerning the overwhelming corruption of science inherent in current medical research at the Healthy Scepticism library – ?
Honestly, you constantly question whether what people see and experience with their own eyes is real yet accept without question what those who have a vested interest in making people believe them with no evidence whatsoever say. As someone who claims to be a ‘skeptic’, you might want to start looking a little bit deeper.
It is true that some researchers manipulate results to assert certain conclusions that are far from the true situation,
Andrew Wakefield did this in an effort to show an association between the MMR vaccination and Autism. This damaging fraud
was duly punished. As far as Scientific and Medical Journals, the Authors are not responsible for press releases, the article may be presented at a conference and the Media officers for the organisers of the conference or the conference sponsors can use information presented to generate press releases. They can be misinterpreted with spin and bias can be seen, something that I see in the Media all of the time. Sensationalist journalism sells News paper advertising space and subscriptions.
Christer – you are wrong about Wakefield and are just repeating what you have heard without ever having done any investigation yourself – typical of those who call themselves ‘skeptics’ without ever being truly sceptical.
Wakefield’s paper was a case series and there was no effort on his part or on the part of his 12 co-authors to show an association between MMR vaccine and autism. In fact, the paper clearly said that they were not able to show such an association but that the families involved felt that their children’s gut and behavioural problems started after vaccination so there needed to be further investigation.
You might want to look into that before commenting again.
Exactly where does it state the Dr Andrew Wakefield showed or even tried to show an association between the MMR and Autism?
Now who is the spin-master?
Are we not surprised by these actions!
I will always ask, when someone vehemently pushes a product………. what’s in it for them?”
The science spin is important for the developers and gets the desired effect of community compliance with the introduction of a new vaccine or product. It is then on -spun to Governments who need to appear effective, responsible and concerned when it comes to public health. Governments have good intentions, but because of the science spin, new parents feel obliged to give their children and babies vaccines that are quite possibly unnecessary and dangerous. There is no scientific spin that will ever convince me that a new born baby in Australia should be given a Hep B vaccination on day one in hospital. There are so many unanswered questions about safety and effectiveness and indeed the morality of bombarding a new baby’s delicate, developing immune system with a toxic mix of viruses and chemicals that are known to be poisonous and possibly even contaminated with unknown organisms. In my opinion, the science spin is unable to justify it’s rhetoric on ‘herd immunity’ when any child anywhere is injured from a vaccine. Until the science is unfailing with no adverse reactions to vaccination short term or long term then all schedules and programmes should quite rightly cease while further independent science is undertaken.
Excellent points, Penn! And ‘independent’ should be the operative word in ANY scientific investigation and it is one word that is conspicuously lacking in research into vaccination.
Well said Penn! Also people have to be aware that the word “efficacy” that is thrown around a lot, does not mean “safety.”
If new parents were informed more about how humans contracted “Hep B” it would be interesting to see what the outcome would be. Would we see a decline in newborns receiving the vaccine?