The Flaws of ‘Peer Reviewed’ Scientific Literature

Before the pandemic I had hardly heard of the concept of ‘peer review’. To be truthful, I barely ever looked at a scientific study.

I mostly relied on books from medical authors that I liked to increase my knowledge and help my assisted living residents. Those authors would cite scientific studies in their books. I would just trust they had reviewed the studies and kept reading.

Suddenly during Covid, it seemed like scientific studies were becoming weaponized. Everyone had a study that could one-up someone else’s study.

“Well my study is random, placebo-controlled”

“Well my study is peer reviewed”

Yet one study would contradict another study. One showed masks work to prevent infections. Another showed masks don’t matter. Lockdowns work. Lockdowns don’t work.

How is this science?

Science is supposed to be nothing but facts. Scientists perform one experiment according to the scientific method and document the results. Other scientists duplicate the experiment and obtain the same results. Over and over again.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

The problem is that science is still done by humans. Humans have biases. Humans respond to incentives.

So it’s not surprising that some of these peer reviewed studies might not be 100% cold, hard facts.

Recently I found this video of an interview of Dr John Abramson, who wrote several books on how ‘The Science’, especially medical science, is corrupted in America.

Here’s how he explains the peer review process:

• The people who write the ‘Clinical Practice Guidelines’ rely on peer-reviewed studies that have been published in medical journals

• Although those studies have been ‘peer reviewed’, the experts who have done the reviews have not analyzed the actual data from the experiments

• The experts only have access to the articles that have been published describing the data

• There is no independent analysis of the data. The drug companies own the data and write the original reports

• You’re not allowed to become a ‘peer review expert’ unless you adhere to an approved version of science - no radical thoughts or innovations permitted

Why is it that way? Dr Abramson explains it by relating a conversation he had with an editor of a major medical journal. He asked the editor why the journal doesn’t demand access to the drug company’s data in their clinical study reports.

The editors reply?

“Requiring that data would be a death spiral for the journal.”

He’s saying if the editor’s journal required the data, and another journal would not require the data, the pharmaceutical companies would just submit their articles to the other journal. He went on to say a major part of the income of the journals comes from selling reprints back to the pharmaceutical company for the drug reps to hand out.

In 2005 45% of the income of the Lancet medical journal’s income came from selling reprints back to the drug companies.

The answer to all this is not to call for taking money out of medicine. That will never happen. Doctor’s gotta eat. Instead we need to look for business models that incentivize doing the right thing.

That’s why I’m so enthusiastic about assisted living. Having my homes improve people’s health has brought me a lot of business. And it’s a model that improved my business while making my customers healthier.

Having a business model like the pharmaceutical companies where you have to rely on bought and paid for experts to browbeat your customers with biased research just doesn’t seem sustainable.