Posted on 07/19/2021 7:36:51 AM PDT by Red Badger
Opinions expressed in this article don't necessarily reflect the views of ScienceAlert editorial staff.
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Haruko Obokata published two papers in January 2014 that described how regular blood cells could be turned into pluripotent stem cells.
At the time, this was a coup – it dramatically simplified a previously complicated process and opened up new vistas of medical and biological research, while neatly sidestepping the bioethical considerations of using human embryos to harvest stem cells.
Moreover, the process for this was straightforward, and involved applying a weak acid solution or mechanical pressure – oddly similar to how you'd clean a rust stain off a knife.
Within a few days, scientists noticed some of the images in the paper were irregular. And a broader skepticism began. Could it really be that simple?
As the experiments were simple and the biologists were curious, attempts to replicate the papers' findings began immediately. They failed. By February, Obokata's institute had launched an investigation. By March, some of the paper's co-authors were disavowing the methods. By July, the papers were retracted.
While the papers were clearly unreliable, there was no clarity on the center of the problem. Had the authors mislabelled a sample? Did they discover a method that worked once but was inherently unreliable?
Had they simply made up the data? It took years longer, but the scientific community got an approximate answer when further related papers by Obokata were also retracted for image manipulation, data irregularities, and other problematic issues.
The whole episode was a sterling example of science correcting itself. An important result was published, it was doubted, it was tested, investigated, and found wanting… and then it was retracted.
This is how we might hope the process of organized skepticism would always work. But, it doesn't.
In the vast majority of scientific work, it is incredibly rare for other scientists to even notice irregularities in the first place, let alone marshal the global forces of empiricism to do something about them. The underlying assumption within academic peer review is that fraud is sufficiently rare or unimportant as to be unworthy of a dedicated detection mechanism.
Most scientists assume they will never come across a single case of fraud in their careers, and so even the thought of checking calculations in reviewable papers, re-running analyses, or checking if experimental protocols were properly deployed is deemed unnecessary.
Worse, the accompanying raw data and analytical code often needed to forensically analyze a paper are not routinely published, and performing this kind of stringent review is often considered to be a hostile act, the kind of drudge work reserved only for the deeply motivated or the congenitally disrespectful.
Everyone is busy with their own work, so what kind of grinch would go to such extremes to invalidate someone else's?
Which brings us neatly to ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug trialed as a treatment for COVID-19 after lab-bench studies early in 2020 showed it was potentially beneficial.
It rose in popularity sharply after a published-then-withdrawn analysis by the Surgisphere group showed a huge reduction in death rates for people who take it, triggering a massive wave of use for the drug across the globe.
More recently, the evidence for ivermectin's efficacy relied very substantially on a single piece of research, which was preprinted (that is, published without peer review) in November 2020.
This study, drawn from a large cohort of patients and reporting a strong treatment effect, was popular: read over 100,000 times, cited by dozens of academic papers, and included in at least two meta-analytic models that showed ivermectin to be, as the authors claimed, a "wonder drug" for COVID-19.
It is no exaggeration to say that this one paper caused thousands if not millions of people to get ivermectin to treat and/or prevent COVID-19.
A few days ago, the study was retracted amid accusations of fraud and plagiarism. A masters student who had been assigned to read the paper as part of his degree noticed that the entire introduction appeared to be copied from earlier scientific papers, and further analysis revealed that the study's datasheet posted online by the authors contained obvious irregularities.
It is hard to overstate how monumental a failing this is for the scientific community. We proud guardians of knowledge accepted at face value a piece of research that was so filled with holes that it only took a medical student a few hours to entirely dismantle.
The seriousness accorded to the results was in direct contrast to the quality of the study. The authors reported incorrect statistical tests at multiple points, standard deviations that were extremely implausible, and a truly eye-watering degree positive efficacy – the last time the medical community found a '90 percent benefit' for a drug on a disease, it was the use of antiretroviral medication to treat people dying of AIDS.
Yet, no-one noticed. For the better part of a year, serious, respected researchers included this study in their reviews, medical doctors used it as evidence to treat their patients, and governments acknowledged its conclusions in public health policy.
No-one spent the 5 minutes required to download the data file that the authors had uploaded online and notice that it reported numerous deaths happening before the study had even begun. No one copy-and-pasted phrases from the introduction into Google, which is all it takes to notice just how much of it is identical to already-published papers.
This inattention and inaction perpetuated the saga – when we remain studiously disinterested in the problem, we also don't know how much scientific fraud there is, or where it can be readily located or identified, and consequently make no robust plans to address or ameliorate its effects.
A recent editorial in the British Medical Journal argued that it might be time to change our basic perspective on health research, and assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise.
That is to say, not to assume that all researchers are dishonest, but to begin the receipt of new information in health research from a categorically different baseline level of skepticism as opposed to blind trust.
This might sound extreme, but if the alternative is accepting that occasionally millions of people will receive medications based on unvetted research that is later withdrawn entirely, it may actually be a very small price to pay.
These are the same folks who killed thousands by putting them on ventilators. To them the result is not important so long as the procedures in the book or those politically decreed are followed.
Blah, blah, blah, and frickin’ blah!
“triggering a massive wave of use for the drug across the globe.’
“caused thousands if not millions of people to get ivermectin to treat and/or prevent COVID-19.”
Well???? Did it WORK or not?
Who gives two shites about your stupid pee-er reviews. You have a “massive wave” of “thousands if not millions” of people who took Ivermectin for COVID. Did it work for them?
STUDY THAT! Then get back to me.
“There are hundreds of actual peer reviewed studies now on both Ivermectin and Hydroxycloroquin that prove both are effective. Along with hundreds of doctors and entire countries like India that have used both drugs successfully.”
I agree, this is a story meant to frighten the weak minded into taking the vax.
agreed
Viagra works by opening up blood vessels to reduce pressure.
Which also makes certain things happen easier (PG statement!)
A lot of blood pressure meds have the same action, but that little purple pill did it better.
My point is Ivermectin is an anti parasitic drug. A great one.
But what is the method of action for treating a viral infection with Ivermectin? See with Viagra, a blood pressure med have a side effect of putting lead in the pencil was known. It just did it better than the rest of the meds. It arose, so to speak, during the trials. With Ivermectin I still haven’t heard a plausible explanation of why it works. It is pretty safe so using it as a “Throw anything at it!” is OK IMO, but since even the proponents can’t say why it works, or prove that it does (sorry Joe Rogan), I am skeptical.
And horse paste tastes horrible (tried it as a kid since the horses liked).
And I have seen the opposite.
Data analysis is hard.
I have a request. A freeper tried Ivermectin and is in the ICU.
Please pray for them.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3974843/posts?q=1&;page=1
This story is deadly propaganda from the Fauci wing of bad science. It should have a “barf” tag after the title.
Dayum!
Coronavirus PING!
So, you’re saying take Viagra along with Ivermectin? And Vitamin D and Zinc.
LOL
Well... If you REALLY want to. Not sure what that would do.
Just saying that no one can say why Ivermectin would work, unlike Viagra.
Vit D and zinc has some clear benefits, but you can OD on both.
Hydroxychloroquine works because it is a zinc ionophore, which changes the charge of zinc ions to get them into the cells more easily; the zinc strongly inhibits reproduction of ALL viruses.
I don’t know why ivermectin works, just that it does from many reports that I have read and heard about from others.
There are bad apples in every walk of life. Perhaps even more in science and medicine as they’re required to present research for tenure, money and fame.
I read somewhere that PHD Theses never even get read......................
https://ivmmeta.com/ is the meta-analysis, which already REMOVED the study in your article.
Even after removing that work, the meta-analysis shows "The probability that an ineffective treatment generated results as positive as the 60 studies to date is estimated to be 1 in 193 billion (p = 0.0000000000052)."
Of more importance, is the "withdrawn" study.
It's funny how your article doesn't trace its provenance.
According to an article in The GuardianL on the withdrawn study,
“Thousands of highly educated scientists, doctors, pharmacists, and at least four major medicines regulators missed a fraud so apparent that it might as well have come with a flashing neon sign. That this all happened amid an ongoing global health crisis of epic proportions is all the more terrifying.”
This whole thing sounds like a set-up or hit job on Ivermectin.
Nothing is 100%. I rely on vitamin D. My whole family of 8, including son-in-law, got CCPV in February-March last year. All of us except SIL took massive(by formula) doses of D3. SIL refuses to do anything his doctor does not tell him to do. He got pretty sick. The rest of us were done with it in two days.
Please see posts #16 and #34 this thread for positive results with Ivermectin.
And if you were honest, which you’re not, you’d have noted they didn’t start off with a 5 day regimen as suggested by some on the thread; they took it on days 1 and 3 and then waited until day 6 to contact FR.
Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
John P. A. Ioannidis
A recent editorial in the British Medical Journal argued that it might be time to change our basic perspective on health research, and assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise.
That is to say, not to assume that all researchers are dishonest, but to begin the receipt of new information in health research from a categorically different baseline level of skepticism as opposed to blind trust.
This might sound extreme, but if the alternative is accepting that occasionally millions of people will receive medications based on unvetted research that is later withdrawn entirely, it may actually be a very small price to pay.
Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
John P. A. Ioannidis
Summary:
There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field.
In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance.
Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true.
Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.
In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/
OK, that particular thread is irrelevant to the demonstrably false claim made in the posted article, to which my comment was directed, but let’s go look at that and see if we can glean any knowledge.
On that thread, a FReeper posted that he had been diagnosed with COVID and were “very sick”. In the initial post, one might surmise that they tried initially to self medicate, presumably with a low dose of IVM and maybe some other stuff, but note, they were already “very sick”. And quickly, they are urged to go to the doc and get an approved monoclonal antibody, which is denied because of the FDA’s stringent rules that have been much bemoaned here, because they (there are two people being discussed) were already mildly hypoxic. That’s the money quote in that thread: they tried to get one of the “—mab”s, and were turned down because of FDA rules.
But that has nothing at all to do with this mendacious, nay libelous screed that attempts to conflate a proven case of academic fraud with an as-yet unproven allegation of fraud in a single study, and then slyly cast aspersions on the actual basis for serious consideration of IVM and other re-purposed drugs for the treatment of COVID.
The case for this particular re-purposed drug, ivermectin, is based on the three meta-analyses that I referenced earlier, not a single study.
Also he’s being refused treatment. Which is how two people I know died from covid. I was pretty stunned there was no intervention, just put on a vent to die.
https://freerepublic.com/tag/by:terart/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change
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