Doctor Admits Lancet study is Fiction/Nature

The first article I want to address is located for premium members of news@nature.com
I think that most of us have heard about Woo Suk Hwang from South Korea. This one is in regard to:

A Norweigian researcher dreamed up the lives and lifestyles of some 900 people - and used them in a study on cancer. Then, last October Jon Sudbo had his results published in the Lancet.

The discovery of this deceptive scheme was discovered by accident. Camille Stoltenberg was reading the report and it refers to the Cohort of Norway that she was responsible.

The blatant nature of Sudbo fiction emphasizes questions already being asked about effectivemess of peer review, even in top journals, and about who should be resposible for cathing the fraud.

So what does Lancet think about these two recent developements...

Richard Horton , editor of the Lancet, insists his journal is not at fault. "This is all so similar to the Hwang thing that we have just been through," he says wearily. "Peer review is a great system for detecting badly done research, but if you have an investigator determined to fabricate an entire study, it is not possible to pick it up." The mechanism of peer review at his journal is currently being examined as part of the largest study ever conducted into the process.

Well if there really is no way to find a complete fraudalent study, then the system needs to be changed!

"Journals scolded for slack disclosure rules" article talks about conflict of interests in studies reported on and patents applied for.

Should the patents be granted, the scientists could make a fortune from the techniques. But no disclosure of these potential conflicts of financial interest appeared in either of the Science papers, nor in a 2005 Nature paper about a cloned dog that also bears both men's names.

So how big is the problem?

Critics say the Hwang debacle has exposed general shortcomings in the journals' conflict-of-interest policies. In July 2004, the Center for Science in the Public Interest released a report on papers in four journals over three months. The report found that authors had failed to disclose conflicts of interest in 8% of the articles; a finding that spurred several journals, including Environmental Health Perspectives, to alter their policies.

Links:
Communists

Journals scolded for slack disclosure rules

Genocide and the West. posted by lenin