By a Biomedical Scientist

Biomedical research papers are being published in which the abstract, the discussion section, and even the title contradict the content within the paper.

This is unlikely to be happening because the authors don’t understand their own data. It’s more likely that the authors are being pressured by their financial backers and the editorial staff of journals to reach conclusions that advance the prevailing narrative.

It’s a well thought out deception that uses seemingly intellectual analysis to lead the undiscerning reader into believing the wrong conclusion. Skewing statistics is easy to accomplish simply by using the wrong statistical test, using a weak test when a stronger one should apply or just about any other trick to misrepresent the data.

Medical journals have become financially dependent on their advertisers, which are almost exclusively the big pharmaceutical companies. With enough money, they can buy a scientific study that says what they want it to say.

Sometimes these studies are “ghost” written by people working for industry with credentialed unscrupulous scientists and doctors names misattributed as authors when in fact they did none of the writing.

The pharmaceutical industry uses its profits to control biomedical science at every level, from researchers to journal editors, to government regulatory agencies, and to the media who are supposed to interpret science for the public.

Pressure is being placed on independent researchers by the journal editors and peer reviewers, many of whom have ties to Big Pharma. Valid studies, honestly reported, can be rejected for publication if they convey a message that threatens corporate profits. Many scientific authors know how difficult it is to get a paper through peer review at most “reputable” medical journals when the results are not in line with the official narrative.

Many biomedical scientists have become shills for the pharmaceutical companies. Rigging clinical trials the old-fashioned way is expensive, time-consuming, uncertain, and recent legislation makes it more difficult. Sometimes the truth emerges even if a study is designed to hide it. Even a study that is designed to fail might succeed when the inconvenient truths are stubborn enough.

It’s easier to report the actual results and then tack on an abstract and a discussion section that convey the right message, regardless of the data in the main body of the article. This can then be used in the “citation bluff” fraud, that depends on people not carefully reading supposed supportive evidence, to perpetuate the false narrative.

Often the cited evidence in support of a particular narrative doesn’t really support the narrative being advanced. In fact, the supposed supportive evidence can sometimes even completely contradict the narrative being pushed.

This is something to bear in mind the next time you get into an argument with someone demanding to see peer-reviewed evidence and rejecting any evidence that has not been peer-reviewed regardless of its merits.

Journals and the peer review process have been corrupted by powerful vested interests.