Sunday, October 22, 2006

An Unwelcome Discovery - NYT

Fraud in science is not a new thing. It is worthwhile to record them nonetheless, because each incident serves to:
  • maintain a tally as a counterbalance against exclusive claims to character
  • the limits of the context of justification idea: in this case, papers (including, I assume, those published in peer reviewed journals) dating back to decade(s) ago had to be withdrawn
  • the waste of public moneys and the level of oversight that in reality can be maintained
  • the risks posed to the public by all of the above
Below is a segment of a New York Times report:

An Unwelcome Discovery - New York Times

On a rainy afternoon in June, Eric Poehlman stood before a federal judge in the United States District Court in downtown Burlington, Vt. His sentencing hearing had dragged on for more than four hours, and Poehlman, dressed in a black suit, remained silent while the lawyers argued over the appropriate sentence for his transgressions. Now was his chance to speak. A year earlier, in the same courthouse, Poehlman pleaded guilty to lying on a federal grant application and admitted to fabricating more than a decade’s worth of scientific data on obesity, menopause and aging, much of it while conducting clinical research as a tenured faculty member at the University of Vermont. He presented fraudulent data in lectures and in published papers, and he used this data to obtain millions of dollars in federal grants from the National Institutes of Health — a crime subject to as many as five years in federal prison. Poehlman’s admission of guilt came after more than five years during which he denied the charges against him, lied under oath and tried to discredit his accusers. By the time Poehlman came clean, his case had grown into one of the most expansive cases of scientific fraud in U.S. history.

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Doctors Rethink Widespread Use of Heart Stents - NYT

Doctors Rethink Widespread Use of Heart Stents - NYT

But now stent sales are falling and some doctors are rethinking their faith in the devices, driven by emerging evidence that the newest and most common type — drug-coated stents — can sometimes cause potentially fatal blood clots months or even years after they are implanted.

The Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that it would hold hearings in early December to consider whether to issue new stent safety guidelines.

The evidence indicates that overuse of stents may be leading to thousands of heart attacks and deaths each year, whether because stents are being used in relatively mild cases where drugs should be prescribed instead, or because patients are receiving drug-coated versions where simpler, cheaper bare-metal devices might work just as well.

There is no question that stents have saved countless lives in the short term by preventing impending heart attacks or opening arteries while an attack is being treated. But neither type of stent, no matter how much better it may make a patient feel, has been shown in rigorous clinical trials to improve long-term survival compared with other forms of treatment.

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The new evidence has added to a long-simmering debate over whether doctors have been too quick to prescribe stenting — whether because drugs would work as well for healthier patients or because bypass surgery might help the sickest ones live longer.
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Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Breast screening 'may do harm'

Some news on the efficacy of screening for breast cancer:

BBC | Breast screening 'may do harm'

Researchers looked at international studies on half a million women.

They found that for every 2,000 women screened over a decade, one will have her life prolonged, but 10 will have to undergo unnecessary treatment.

UK experts said women over 50 should go for their breast checks, but a screening pioneer raised doubts about the programme's future.

The report, published in the Cochrane Library, involved a review of breast cancer research papers from around the world.


Women invited to screening should be fully informed of both benefits and harm
Dr Peter Gotzsche, researcher

The scientists found mammograms did reduce the number of women dying from the disease.

But they also discovered it was diagnosing woman with breast cancer who would have survived without treatment, meaning they were undergoing unnecessary chemotherapy, radiotherapy or mastectomies.

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