Also posted over at the new podcast specifically for EMS research – EMS Research Podcast. On episode 2 we discuss several topics, including the article Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science, by David H. Freedman. This article suggests that medical research is always wrong. Since we were discussing this on a podcast about research, I would have expected much more interest in this critical topic.
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Since this is an article about the research done by Dr. John Ioannidis, does the article accurately represent the research of Dr. Ioannidis?
First, let’s look at the evidence provided in the article and the way it is presented.
Just as I was getting the sense that the data in drug studies were endlessly malleable, Ioannidis, who had mostly been listening, delivered what felt like a coup de grâce: wasn’t it possible, he asked, that drug companies were carefully selecting the topics of their studies—for example, comparing their new drugs against those already known to be inferior to others on the market—so that they were ahead of the game even before the data juggling began? “Maybe sometimes it’s the questions that are biased, not the answers,” he said, flashing a friendly smile. Everyone nodded. Though the results of drug studies often make newspaper headlines, you have to wonder whether they prove anything at all. Indeed, given the breadth of the potential problems raised at the meeting, can any medical-research studies be trusted?[1]
There are not many direct quotes in the article, rather there are many interpretations of what Dr. Ioannidis says. This is one of the problems with the article. The article purports to be about the problems with the objectivity of medical research, but the author of the article is constantly inserting his own opinion where we should be reading the words of Dr. Ioannidis.
“Though the results of drug studies often make newspaper headlines, you have to wonder whether they prove anything at all.” – David H. Freedman.
A newspaper headline has nothing to do with science. Newspaper headlines are the interpretation of isolated research by non-scientists for an audience of non-scientists. There is plenty of excellent coverage of the problems with this kind of bad journalism at Gary Schwitzer’s HealthNewsReview Blog.
Do journalists do a good job of reporting science?
No.
Does that mean that medical science is a Lie?
Does that mean that medical science is a Damned Lie?
If we are buying what Dr. Mr. Freedman is selling, then medical science is not just a lie, but a damned lie. After all, Dr. Mr. Freedman is a journalist presenting medical research in a way designed to sell the most copies and make a lot of money to get the most people to read his story.
The reporting of medical science press releases from non-scientists publicizing the research done by scientists is not a significant part of the problem. Only the science is the problem – at least, if we are buying what Dr. Mr. Freedman is selling.
“Indeed, given the breadth of the potential problems raised at the meeting, can any medical-research studies be trusted?” – David H. Freedman.
According to Dr. Mr. Freedman?
Or
According to Dr. Ioannidis?
As I intend to point out further, these two answers are not within six sigma of each other in the same ballpark.
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His work has been widely accepted by the medical community; it has been published in the field’s top journals, where it is heavily cited; and he is a big draw at conferences. Given this exposure, and the fact that his work broadly targets everyone else’s work in medicine, as well as everything that physicians do and all the health advice we get, Ioannidis may be one of the most influential scientists alive. Yet for all his influence, 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.[1]
Scientists publicly admitting that there are problems?
Journalists writing about scientists pointing out the limitations of the research that they publish?
Or
Journalists promoting the new cure for cancer in humans every time something is shown to correlate with less growth of cancer in a single mouse.
The job of a journalist is to ask the tough questions.
The job of a journalist is to understand the material being presented.
The job of a journalist is not to republish a press release from a drug lab, sometimes just cutting and pasting the entire press release into the newspaper, magazine, or web page.
Still, we often get nothing more than press releases forwarded by the news media.
Is this a failure of science?
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To be continued in Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science – Part II and later to be continued in Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science – Part III.
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Footnotes:
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[1] Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science
The Atlantic
by David H. Freedman
Article
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