Over the last few years, research scientists reviewed the results of more than 50 “landmark” cancer studies. The goal of the review was to double-check the validity of these studies, many of which served as the foundation of most of today’s current knowledge and understanding of the notorious disease. According to one columnist, a renowned investigative reporter from the L.A. Times, we have a medical research problem:

The idea was to make sure that research on which Amgen was spending millions of development dollars still held up. They figured that a few of the studies would fail the test — that the original results couldn’t be reproduced because the findings were especially novel or described fresh therapeutic approaches.

But what they found was startling: Of the 53 landmark papers, only six could be proved valid. This means that, for years, the medical community has been relying on inaccurate information and incomplete data. It also means that patients worldwide may have been subjected to excessive testing and unnecessary treatment.

In Germany, a similar research review (conducted by Bayer HealthCare) found equally disheartening results. They were only able to validate one-quarter of the studies they use as the springboard for their research.

How does this happen, exactly? UC Berkeley and Howard Hughes Medical Institute biologist Michael Eisen told the Times:

“The journals want the papers that make the sexiest claims,” [Eisen] says. “And scientists believe that the way you succeed is having splashy papers in Science or Nature — it’s not bad for them if a paper turns out to be wrong, if it’s gotten a lot of attention.”

Essentially, researchers who have discovered ho-hum results in their latest study know they cannot get
published by stating the facts, so they are more likely to trump up an exciting, yet actually insignificant finding.

And apparently, that’s exactly what has been going on—and it’s costing us money. According to the Times:

The Economist recently estimated spending on biomedical R&D in industrialized countries at $59 billion a year. That’s how much could be at risk from faulty fundamental research. This faulty research is being
trusted as gospel because the review process is inefficient at best, and possibly broken. The “perverse incentives” to have unfounded work published have started to outweigh the merits of scientifically sound
clinical results that could improve the quality of life for people the world over.

“A paper that actually shows a previous paper is true would never get published in an important journal,” [Eisen] says, “and it would be almost impossible to get that work funded.”

The next time you see a headline touting a miracle cure, take a moment to remember that the astounding
result always receives more airtime than the practical solution.

Problems in peer review

There have also been some serious upsets in the peer-review process in several high-profile science and medical journals. For example, in June of 2015, BioMed Central–a peer-reviewed medical journal publisher–retracted 43 papers because it was revealed that the peer review process was completely fabricated. It never happened at all.

Peer review is an incredibly important process in scientific publishing that is supposed to ensure research and scientific integrity in all avenues of a paper, from the scientific method to the research methods to the conclusion and the presentation of information. There are a lot of ways a scientific paper can go wrong: biased research methods, poor or biased interpretation of data, biased or poor presentation of the findings. Objective, third-party peers are meant to catch these things, and in too many cases, these people don’t even exist.

Conflict of interest funding

Also, always check Who Funds Studies. Most “Scientific” Research is merely paid advertising by the
pharmaceutical companies. The first step to check validity of a study is to find out who paid for the study
to be done in the first place!

But it goes much deeper than that. In 2007, a survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 70% of medical school department heads had personal relationships with businesses in the medical industry. And a similar survey in 2003 found “strong and consistent evidence” that when a medical industry business funds research more often than not produces results that favor that industry financially.

This is particularly disturbing considering that any good scientist will tell you that almost all of your experiments will not produce the expected outcome… Think about it.