You all heard of "climate-gate". The scandal that emerged after someone (probably a very very well-paid one) hacked into the emails of certain top academics and published them. It turned out that those academics have manipulated data and prevented people to publish contradicting to them data trough their peer-reviewing. For most people, that meant that the whole idea of global warming is a fraud and that we all have to continue driving our SUVs and be happy. Obviously, that's nonsense. It's so damn clear that the weather is changing and it's damn clear that man-kind finally reached that density and intellectuality that enable us to affect our planet.
I don't quite understand how anyone could doubt that we have to change our life-style - it's not science, it's common sense. The consumerist model was created to accommodate US economy and create prosperity for the USA. But the situation is different today than in the 70s - today many countries that were poor before are getting richer. And of course they take the same US model and they also want to consume. But the base of this model is the abundance that out-sourcing creates - companies thrive on the cheap Asian workers and resources. What would happen if those workers are no longer cheap. And who's going to work for the rich Asian people who also want to consume. And where all those resources will come from? As we see China is already stopping the export of some substances, how far would they go? I'm sure most people can follow this line of reasoning to the obvious question. Who's going to feed and produce for us, if we continue to follow the consumerist model - consume and throw up? And how much heat and pollution the atmosphere can take before it starts being bad with us? So for me the question is not "if", but "when". Even if it's not today, it will be tomorrow - even if we're not now the major reason for the warming, we will be tomorrow, and the sooner we act the better. So I have no doubts that we have to act now and to change our life-style to something more efficient.
However, there was one more important question that "climate-gate" opened. And it was about peer-reviewing. For non-scientists or unfamiliar with the word - peer-reviewing happens when an author sends an article to a scientific journal. The journal editor will send the article to usually 2 scientists from the same field to review it (I hope I'm not wrong with the number, but I'm new to this too). Those people will communicate with the author usually anonymously and tell him/her if the article is ok to be published, if something has to be changed or if the article cannot be published in this form. It sounds clear and ideally, it ensures that the articles published in that journal will be scientifically valuable and written well. So peer-reviewing should be good.
What happens in reality? Since the reviewers are anonymous and experts from the same field , they are direct competitors and there is enormous ground for conflict of interests. In same cases, the reviewers can stall the article until they prepare similar article and publish it BEFORE the original! It has happened. I'm not saying that happens always, no! Most reviewers don't do that, since it's immoral, unethical and disgusting. Such things are never forgiven after all and the scientific community is not that big. But it can happen and has happened.
What's the even bigger threat is that some people use peer-reviewing for oppressing other scientists that disagree with them. Sometimes it's not even direct, sometimes people do that automatically from the fear that the big names in that field will get mad on them for allowing such article to be published. And the authors have not much choice - if you want to get a grant, you have to publish in famous and respected journals, famous and respected journals are reviewed by certain people, you have to "please" those people or you stay without a grant. And pleasing in science means agreeing. Or at least, disagreeing but not directly. It's almost an art - how to disagree without "offending".
As you see, it's a vicious circle. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Because this applies to fundamental science. What happens in applied science, especially medicine?! You need those article published to get the approval for your new drug. The money invested in that drug can vary and reach digits with a lot of zeros! And if all that is between you and the return of your investment are few articles in peer-reviewed journals, what you do? You find a way to get them published!!! And it's not far-fetched, AT ALL! You can see it in first article I pasted.
In the second article, you can see how a drug company wanted to sue a scientist for contradicting them in public!!! Can you imagine this at all? Does this sound right? Could the fear such legal actions induce in scientists leads to a safe drug? I believe not. And I think this is outrageous! Each and every person should be entitled to an opinion. Even if it's not well justified, that's a common right. And every scientist should be free to express disagreement with a theory or a statement, even if it's not completely backed up and polished. After all, was it backed up, that scientist wouldn't "express an opinion", but s/he would go directly to court or safety authorities and ask for legal actions against that product. But everyone has the right of opinion! And any country that allows companies to threaten scientists this way is doomed to catastrophes. I mean, if everyone is too scared to announce their fears or discoveries in public, how do you ensure that a product is safe. Because the scientists in the safety authorities are the same scientists! Obviously, this is wrong and dangerous path to walk.
Why I write this? Because I'm afraid that the public mistrust in science will continue to grow. And I'm convinced that we have to stop that in time. The scientists are not better persons, they are just the same persons as anyone else - there are good people, there are bad people. That's why, there is a need for regulations that makes sure that science is responsible and transparent. And that's not a contradiction to what I discussed so far. I believe the one of the main problems is in peer-reviewing. I think that if reviewers are known to everyone and there are clear deadlines for the reviews and probably guidelines for them, everything will go much more smoothly. After all, you are reviewing a scientific paper, you have to stand behind your reviews and not be ashamed by them. You're not doing something wrong, you're improving the article and working for the science. And if you're doing something bad, you have to be held responsible for that.
And of course second part, I think the government should be very strict in any interference in science by corporations. What I mean? It's clear that corporations that do science will do science. But they will do it behind their "walls". When this science gets out of those walls, it should be public and the process of confirming that science should be free of interferences. That would mean, you cannot review a paper that contradicts to certain statements if you got paid for something by the company that defends that statement. It's a clear conflict of interests and it should be avoided.
And then, the public can trust the scientists again. Maybe there are other things to be done, but that's at least the beginning. And note, I shared some of those thoughts in a blog post on climate-gate in New Scientists and what happened? That opinion NEVER appeared! That's what I call censure and that's what people in that business fear. That the immense conflict of interests will be made public. But I believe that it will become much more public if we don't act NOW and we don't change the status-quo. Things can change and they can change for the better. It's up to us to do it. And if we don't, people will stop trusting science and when they do - there won't be money for us. And then, there will be no scientists. And I think, that would be very bad for the world. So why wait for that, let's change it while we can. Let's restore public trust and respect in science.
The third article is a rare good news and victory - finally the access to scientific journals become almost open. And this is fair, because if public money pay for your research then the public has the right to access this research freely. So, this is really a good news. Even if so far, it's applied only for health articles. I hope that the NSF will join that soon enough - after authors get so little out of publishing, it's non-sense to claim it's crucial for the field. It simply is not. It's inertia that serves publishers, but it would eventually stop. After all, why buying any journal when everything is available in "arxiv.org"?! No?
- Quoth Elsevier: "Whoops, I did it again." (Six times, actually)
- US drug firm drops libel action against scientist
- Publishers and consumers of scientific journals reach consensus on 'open access'
Quoth Elsevier: "Whoops, I did it again." (Six times, actually)
Posted on: May 11, 2009 3:00 PM, by Orac
Whoops, Elsevier did it again. Six times:Scientific publishing giant Elsevier put out a total of six publications between 2000 and 2005 that were sponsored by unnamed pharmaceutical companies and looked like peer reviewed medical journals, but did not disclose sponsorship, the company has admitted.Elsevier is conducting an "internal review" of its publishing practices after allegations came to light that the company produced a pharmaceutical company-funded publication in the early 2000s without disclosing that the "journal" was corporate sponsored.
The allegations involve the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, a publication paid for by pharmaceutical company Merck that amounted to a compendium of reprinted scientific articles and one-source reviews, most of which presented data favorable to Merck's products. The Scientist obtained two 2003 issues of the journal -- which bore the imprint of Elsevier's Excerpta Medica -- neither of which carried a statement obviating Merck's sponsorship of the publication.
So far this appears to have occurred only in Australia--that we know of. I still can't help but wonder whether other divisions of Elsevier other than the the one in Australia have engaged in this deceptive practice. Once again, I can't emphasize just how bad this looks for Elsevier. We expect drug companies to do whatever they can to try to sell their products. It's what they do. It's in their nature. However, a publishing house that publishes peer-reviewed scientific literature is expected, well, to publish peer-reviewed scientific literature. Such behavior as that of Elsevier risks turning its journals into advertising arms of the pharmaceutical companies. source
US drug firm drops libel action against scientist
- David Leigh, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 February 2010 14.44 GMT
Lawyers for leading Danish radiologist Henrik Thomsen said today: "He will be obviously relieved. Now he won't have to worry about his future financial position, and won't have to keep looking over his shoulder before he says anything."
At a 2007 Oxford medical conference, Thomsen criticised use of Omniscan, GE's best-selling contrast agent injected into patients so their tissues show up better during MRI scans.
Use of the drug, which contains a toxic metal, gadolinium, has now been halted for a small group of patients with previously malfunctioning kidneys, after hundreds of them developed permanently crippling side-effects from a condition called NSF.
The financial terms of the settlement were secret, Thomsen's lawyer, Andrew Stephenson of Carter-Ruck, said yesterday. But the solicitors had defended the case on a no-win no-fee basis, so it is expected by observers that they will have gained a sizeable payment.
In agreed statements released today, Thomsen said: "I stand by my publicly expressed opinion, based on my experience and research on published papers, that there is an association between the chemical formulation of gadolinium-based contrast agents and NSF."
He added: "It was not my intention to suggest on the basis of the evidence then available to me that GE Healthcare had marketed Omniscan knowing that it might cause NSF."
The company, a subsidiary of the giant US corporation General Electric, said it had not intended to "stifle academic debate" by suing Thomsen for libel, and accepted that his concerns were expressed in good faith: "GE Healthcare objected to statements made by Professor Thomsen which it interpreted as suggesting that it had known from the outset that Omniscan caused NSF."
The company said it welcomed what it called a "principled debate" about safety issues.
The use of British libel laws against scientists by commercial organisations has been the subject of increasing controversy, and a Ministry of Justice working party is considering reforms. source
Publishers and consumers of scientific journals reach consensus on 'open access'
A committee of individuals drawn from all sides of the ongoing debate over free access to the peer-reviewed scientific literature has urged each federal agency that funds research to quickly develop and implement its own policy for providing the material to the public for free. In a consensus report commissioned by the House Committee on Science and Technology, the group known as the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable left the divisive issue of "embargoes"—the post-publication period when journals restrict access to scholarly articles to their subscribers—and their duration, up to individual agencies. While an embargo of up to 12 months will suffice for journals in many science disciplines, the committee said, a longer duration may be needed for those of other fields, particularly for humanities and social sciences.
Since April 2008, all peer-reviewed articles that are published from research funded entirely or in part by the National Institutes of Health are required to be made available for free no later than one year after their publication in a scientific journal. That work is deposited in the PubMed Central database operated by the NIH's National Library of Medicine. The open-access mandate was enshrined in an NIH appropriations bill after a years-long struggle between journal publishers and open-access proponents. The requirement has not yet spilled over to apply to research that is funded by other agencies, such as NSF, Department of Energy, NASA, or Department of Defense.Many scientific societies depend on their journal publishing for much, or most of their revenues. They have argued, with limited success, that libraries would likely drop their subscriptions if they could simply obtain the articles from the free repositories that are operated by federal agencies. Open-access mandates, of course, would apply only to that body of work that is publicly funded.
House S&T Committee chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) said the roundtable's recommendations "strike a good balance by allowing public access to the results of research paid for with federal funds, while preserving the high quality and editorial integrity of scholarly publishing so critical to the scientists and seasoned science writers on whose expertise we all depend."
OSTP's review occurs in the context of Obama's directive—issued on his first full day in office—for agencies to take steps wherever possible to improve openness and transparency in their operations.
In the Senate, a bill called the Federal Research Public Access Act (S. 1373), introduced in July 2009 by Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) would require that agencies provide free access to the articles from research they sponsor within six months of their publication in a journal. But that bill has yet to have had a hearing, despite having been referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which Lieberman chairs. No comparable measure has been introduced in the House.
David Kramer source
Be warned!
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