The Pandemic Claims New Victims: Prestigious Medical Journals (archive)
One study promised that popular blood-pressure drugs were safe for people infected with the coronavirus. Another paper warned that anti-malaria drugs endorsed by President Trump actually were dangerous to these patients.
The studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet, were retracted shortly after publication, following an outcry from researchers who saw obvious flaws.
The hasty retractions, on the same day this month, have alarmed scientists worldwide who fear that the rush for research on the coronavirus has overwhelmed the peer review process and opened the door to fraud, threatening the credibility of respected medical journals just when they are needed most.
[...] "The problem with trust is that it's too easy to lose and too hard to get back," said Dr. Jerome Kassirer, a former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, which published one of the retracted papers in early May. "These are big blunders."
If outside scientists detected problems that weren't identified by the peer reviewers, then the journals failed, he said. Like hundreds of other researchers, Dr. Kassirer called on the editors to publish full explanations of what happened.
See also: US FDA pulls its emergency approval of chloroquine use for COVID-19
[NB: This follows up on "Doubt Looms Over Hydroxychloroquine Study That Halted Global Trials" which was part of 2020-06-15 Roundup of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV2, Coronavirus) Stories --martyb]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:34AM (2 children)
Thank goodness we can continue to trust and rely upon the inimitable SoylentNews Eds, especially when it comes to understanding expertise, peer-review, and other sciency things. And keeping those nasty, nasty aristarchus submissions far, far away.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:58PM (1 child)
The conversation is the peer review on Soylent, aristarchus.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:58PM
Don't delude yourself, noone can peer with aristarchus, much less review him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford