Wise to study studies
It’s about time that someone studied studies or at least questioned the veracity of all that medical jargon, statistics and findings thrown out for public consumption. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a prime publisher of such studies, dedicated its most recent issue to research tactics and reporting. JAMA claims the published studies, including some of its own, are sometimes misleading and frequently fail to mention weaknesses.
JAMA raises critical issues that the major medical journals might be party to feeding misleading information to physicians and patients by failing to fully disclose when pharmaceutical companies have a stake in research, when critical views are withheld or only the most favorable statistics are reported. This misinformation trickles down to the general public, through newspapers such as our own, that publish stories on interesting findings in the medical journals. When journalists merely regurgitate press releases instead of questioning the findings and the source of funding, the public is left without full, accurate information to weigh the validity of the studies.
JAMA in pointing out that its own publications are suspect is doing a service to the medical community and to the public.
Only by disclosing the flaws can JAMA and other medical journals work to correct them.