Posted on 08/25/2005 11:24:27 PM PDT by Siobhan
Tell the Journal of the American Medical Assn. (JAMA) that they have NO BUSINESS publishing a political story as "science"........
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/feedback
Thanks for the ping!
BUMP
Since the editor is a pro-abort pseudo-Catholic woman who has her own pro-death axe to grind...
It would appear, and this is TRULY SCARY, that many of the articles the mainstream press reports on, and that includes the major networks and CNN, get their AP stories from several go betweens...and they are named by the poster ...the original news stories coming from a group called Fenton communications that has offices in DC, San Fran and NY which offers up the stories. This fenton group provides a FORUM for reporters where they can go and get the proper take on any story....all neatly packaged from a liberal point of view.
This fenton communications group is a huge liberal group that represents such astere groups as the lung association to just about every radical left wing group known....this group OFFERS to even write the articles the reporters turn into their bosses...paying them in the process.
It is genuinely scary to learn how the AP works.
Do the press corp even DO ANY WORK ON their own anymore?
It would seem the news is already biased, edited and those stories that do not help the leftist cause BEFORE they even reach the newtalkers and writers we all dispise so much!
Which makes her claim that this study is science so unpalatable. Why would such a smart and compassionate woman take such a stupid position? The only answer I can come up with is peer pressure. Of course thats purely speculation but there you have it.
Fenton Communications Group is the PR outfit behind Cindy Sheehan's "quiet, simple protest by a grieving mother."
This kind of thing is just not done by a peer-reviewed professional journal. Students and interns can be listed as co-authors of papers, but never as lead authors. Even if they do all the writing, their name appears under that of a professor or at least a licensed professional of much experience, who is assumed to have reviewed it, marked it up and endorsed it. This person's name will then appear at the top of the article. The peer review board at JAMA shouldn't have even accepted it without this "credentialing."
If this is true, then this is a serious scandal and there is simply no excuse for anything short of the editor's immediate removal. You could also argue that some heads on the review board need to roll as well.
On ABC Evening News tonight, 8/26, Sub. anchor Terry Moran said that he wanted to add some additional information on a story they had reported that the fetus does not feel pain until 29 weeks. He said the authors of the report, one worked for a pro-abortion group and the other had run an abortion Clinic. He said they had responded that the report was still accurate. Moran sounded like he doubted it.
I WAS SHOCKED AT ABC FOR CORRECTING THIS BOGUS PROPAGANDA REPORT.
First USA Today and now ABC - the media sees the fuse getting short on this bundle of dynamite and is running away from it as fast as they can.
As usual with liberal propaganda, the discrediting will get far less interest, and this study will be cited ad nauseum until it is taken as fact.
??? I don't keep a ping list except for the Chambers' devotions - if that is what you mean.
Regards,
John
BUMP!
The Philadelphia Inquirer, of all places, had a story about this.
This "fetal pain" report has zero credibility. It is left to be seen if the JAMA cares a rat's behind about its own credibility and reputation. That publication claimed that they were unaware of the backgrounds of some of the authors and that they "would have disclosed" those obvious conflicts of interest if they had known about them.
So let's see what they do now.
Catholic Defends article on fetal pain
CHICAGO -- Catherine DeAngelis is a staunch Roman Catholic, used to give Holy Communion to her patients and says she strongly opposes abortion.
So the Journal of the American Medical Association's editor in chief says she had to take a walk around the block after receiving dozens of "horrible, vindictive" e-mails condemning her for publishing an article that says fetuses likely don't feel pain until late pregnancy.
"One woman said she would pray for my soul," DeAngelis said yesterday. "I could use all the prayers I can get."
DeAngelis ticked off a list of other nasty e-mails she received: "Your license should be stripped. "You should get a real job." "Eternity will definitely bring justice for you."
The article in Wednesday's JAMA prompted especially harsh letters from abortion foes because one of the five authors is a University of California, San Francisco obstetrician who works at an abortion clinic. A second author -- a UCSF medical student and lawyer -- once did legal work for the NARAL Pro-Choice America advocacy group.
Critics, including the National Right to Life Committee, said the article was a politically motivated attack on proposed federal legislation dealing with fetal pain. The legislation would require doctors to provide fetal pain information to women seeking abortions when fetuses are at least 20 weeks old, and to offer women fetal anesthesia at that stage of the pregnancy. A handful of states have enacted similar measures.
DeAngelis said JAMA will publish properly submitted critics' comments in an upcoming edition and will give the authors a chance to respond. But she stood by her decision to publish the article.
"There's nothing wrong with this article," DeAngelis said. "This is not original research. This is a review article," based on data in dozens of medical articles by other researchers.
The article did not mention the two researchers' ties to the abortion clinic and the advocacy group. But the connections were later reported by news organizations.
DeAngelis said the obstetrician's experience is not a conflict because performing abortions is often part of that job. She said she would have published the medical student's NARAL connection as a potential conflict of interest had she known about it in advance, but that not mentioning it does not mean that the article or journal are biased.
"If there weren't four other authors and this wasn't a peer-reviewed journal, I'd worry ... but I don't," she said.
Doctor Mark Rosen, the review's senior author, is a University of California-San Francisco anesthesiologist and fetal surgery pioneer. He called the article an objective review of medical literature.
Doctor Philip Darney, a UCSF obstetrics-gynecology professor who is the obstetrician's boss, said the article represents "thoughtful and thorough scholarship. No conflicts of interests were present in conducting this work and no affiliations nor clinical practice information were withheld inappropriately."
DeAngelis said she attends Mass at least weekly and also is a Eucharistic minister, which allows her to administer Communion to fellow Catholics. She said that while she opposes abortion, she also supports a woman's right to choose.
She said she attempts to set aside her personal biases in her role as editor of a reputable medical journal and that researchers who seek to publish in JAMA are expected to do the same.
Jerome Kassirer, a former New England Journal of Medicine editor and vocal critic of doctors' conflicts of interest, said he experienced a similar outcry in the 1990s when his journal published research concluding that a so-called abortion pill was safe and effective.
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