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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsScientists quit journal board protesting 'grossly irresponsible' study claiming COVID-19 vaccines...
...kill.
I almost hesitate to post reference to this article, since I attended a lecture by neural biologists Sam Wang in which he suggested that repeating a lie, even noting that it is just that, a lie, gives it some level of credence.
(To wit: Our media and Trump's lies going back to before he was allowed to destroy American intellectual and moral infrastructure.)
This is a news item in the prestigious scientific journal Science (it's probably open sourced), shades of the ignorant Jenny McCarthy/Robert F. Kennedy Jr lie about autism and vaccines:
Scientists quit journal board, protesting grossly irresponsible study claiming COVID-19 vaccines kill Science News, By Meredith Wadman Jul. 1, 2021):
Some excerpts of the news item:
Since Friday, at least six scientists have resigned positions as associate or section editors with Vaccines, including Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Katie Ewer, an immunologist at the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford who was on the team that developed the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Their resignations were first reported by Retraction Watch.
The data has been misused because it makes the (incorrect) assumption that all deaths occurring post vaccination are caused by vaccination, Ewer wrote in an email. [And] it is now being used by anti-vaxxers and COVID-19-deniers as evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are not safe. [This] is grossly irresponsible, particularly for a journal specialising in vaccines.
The paper is a case of garbage in, garbage out, says Helen Petousis-Harris, a vaccinologist who directs the Vaccine Datalink and Research Group at the University of Auckland and who also resigned as a Vaccines editor after reading the paper. Diane Harper, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who was founding editor-in-chief of Vaccines, also resigned, as did Paul Licciardi, an immunologist at Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Parkville, Australia, and Andrew Pekosz, a respiratory virologist at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The resignations began Friday, the day after the paper was published. By early Monday, Fanny Fang, the journals managing editor, wrote to the editorial board members that Vaccinesa reputable open-access journal launched in 2013 by Basel, Switzerlandbased publisher MDPIhad opened an investigation into the paper. We are treating this case with the utmost seriousness and are committed to swiftly correcting the scientific record, she wrote...
...The paper has drawn nearly 350,000 readers as of 1 July and has been tweeted by antivaccination activists with hundreds of thousands of followers.
None of the papers authors is trained in vaccinology, virology, or epidemiology. They are: Harald Walach, a clinical psychologist and science historian by training who describes himself as a health researcher at Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poland; Rainer Klement, a physicist who studies ketogenic diets in cancer treatment at the Leopoldina Hospital in Schweinfurt, Germany; and Wouter Aukema, an independent data scientist in Hoenderloo, Netherlands.
The three peer reviewers on the paper, two of them anonymous, did not offer any substantial criticism of the authors methodology in these brief reviews. One of them, Anne Ulrich, a chemist who directs the Institute of Biological Interfaces and is chair of biochemistry at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, wrote that the authors analysis is performed responsibly and without methodological flaws and the results were interpreted with the necessary caveats.
I have added the bold.
Most scientists know from experience that "peer reviewed" does not necessarily mean "correct," and even less, "infallible." Over the years here, and elsewhere, I've had people challenge things I know to be true by pointing to a "peer reviewed" paper with more than a little credulity.
It is very clear that as we live in the age of the celebration of the lie, that we should not rely on any one person or group in drawing on very complex issues, including, but hardly limited to issues in Vaccination, Covid, etc. I note that our media is doing a very poor job on covering these issues well, just as they did a terrible job with repeating Trump's outrageous lies, going back to the time Obama was President.
I've written on my own historical credulity in this space: 828 Underground Nuclear Tests, Plutonium Migration in Nevada, Dunning, Kruger, Strawmen, and Tunnels
This case is clearly over the top however; the journal has lost a lot of credibility by publishing such garbage. I almost feel as if the journal should fold.
skip fox
(19,356 posts)I am a lover and long time subscriber of the latter. I'm only afraid that with so long (and intelligent) a post, some careless readers might become confused and will think you're talking anout Science.
NNadir
(33,512 posts)...should not be linked by anyone at anytime.
NNadir
(33,512 posts)skip fox
(19,356 posts)But when I skimmed it quickly the first time I was a bit confused and had to read it over more carefully. So it's not yours, but the careless reader's fault. I just wanted to make sure no one made my initial mistake.
With so much to read, we can all be careless at time and jump to conclusions. I didn't want anyone to think Science would do this without a heavy retraction in a subsequent issue.
mucifer
(23,530 posts)So OP is outdated.
skip fox
(19,356 posts)But there are those (Fox) who will repeat the original and ignore the retraction without a qualm.
NNadir
(33,512 posts)...autism and vaccines.
A recent publication- I don't recall the exact reference- noted that a lot of retracted papers still receive citations.
mucifer
(23,530 posts)the "study". Plus it's good to know at least on some level the people quitting the board made a difference.
Ms. Toad
(34,062 posts)Klaralven
(7,510 posts)https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/scientists-quit-journal-board-protesting-grossly-irresponsible-study-claiming-covid-19
"Vaccines" is a journal published by MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) which is an open-access publisher that is supported by page charges paid by authors. The peer review process seems to be perfunctory, and reviewers are compensated by reduced page charges when they publish. Most of their 287 journals are not in the Science Citation Index Expanded, and those that are tend to have quite low impact factors.
There is no magic in "scientific journal" and "peer reviewed" that makes a document credible, despite what online bullshit artists claim.
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/vaccines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI
Pobeka
(4,999 posts)Antivaxxer's will be using copies of this as "evidence" the vaccine is dangerous.
Publishing this in the first place, in my view, is nothing less than "criminal science", if I may coin a new term.
eppur_se_muova
(36,259 posts)Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believd only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceivd, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect
Johnathan Swift
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/