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Mifepristone is on the WHO'S List of Essential Medicines. It's use mainly to treat several indifferent auto-immune disorders. There are millions of peoole who take this as a life saving medication on a daily basis. This lawsuit is putting a lot of vulnerable people at risk for political gain that's based in large part in religious beliefs which is also unconstitutional. 11 states have a State Constitutional right to privacy that would make anti-abortion laws unconstitutional on a state level in those states. The Supreme Court shouldn't be hearing this case at all. Our institutions are failing us daily. No one had an issue with mifepristone or it's FDA authorization until the Christofascists got their claws into the GOP. This is bigger than just one medication or abortion. This has major implications for our rights across the board. Remember this when I comes time to vote. Millions of women and girls are counting on us to make this right.
Can we make misuse of health statistics to propagate fallacies a felony? The impact of such actions is far greater than the bodily injury-type felonies that affect one person at a time.
Wow. Just wow. Living with the consequences of the MMR- autism fiasco and its impact on not only MMR vaccine rates and measles outbreaks, but the downstream negative effect on overall vaccine hesitancy, I am overwhelmed.
That this could escape the appropriate scrutiny, something that affects women’s health so deeply, is again overwhelming.
Thank you for sharing this. We can only hope it’s not too late for the court.
I am a "published and "peer-reviewed scientist, and I have been a peer reviewer. That the scientific community caught this almost-certain scientific and intellectual dishonesty is in large part a comforting affirmation of the self-checking power of the scientific publishing process and the power of peer review that extends well past the initial decisions to publish.
Thank you very much for sharing this information. So often it seems that the parties calling others unethical are actually projecting their own behavior….
It's going to get (has gotten?) much more difficult for peer reviewers and editors to sus out the true motives of authors.
Willful misrepresentation of data for purposes such as "influencing public (or legal) opinion" should be a permanent black ball for the author, and possibly the author's sponsoring organization.
I predict that "science" in the service of intensional deception is going to become a serious issue on many fronts.
Just as we have laws covering defamation to prevent harming someones reputation, I believe we need laws protecting the body of scientific knowledge from being hijacked by people with an ax to grind.
The problem is "how many new descoveries look just like fraud, until they are validated"? How do you get the "study 0" published to alert others to groundbreaking discoveries?
Perhaps better validation of conflict of interest disclosures is needed.
Is this a place where AI has a role, similar to its use in plagiarism detection? Should there be criminal consequences? Contempt of court proceedings when lawyers intentionally mislead and "experts" testify falsely?
Once again, thank you so much for your important and vital work explaining the ever increasing non-sensical challenges to public health and beyond. Unbelievable is not a strong enough word anymore for what is happening in this country. Please keep sharing your knowledge so we can share with the brainwashed!
A clear explanation of how the process of scientific publication has its own processes to vet publications that demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor. As you quoted, the retracted paper had "Methodological and statistical concerns: Specifically, “unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions,” “material errors,” and “misleading presentations” of data that “demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor and invalidate the authors’ conclusions in whole or in part.”
Ethical considerations. The authors were members of three pro-life advocacy organizations, despite declaring no conflicts of interest in the study."
More ethical considerations. The peer reviewer (who is supposed to be an unbiased third party) didn’t disclose their conflict of interest— that they know the authors personally.
WOW! Thanks so much for laying out what was behind this withdrawal.
One result of the pandemic is I now view every scientific study/article with skepticism. Who are the authors and sponsors, and what is their motivation?
It seems many of the early studies regarding vaccine effectiveness and efficacy - including charts released by the CDC - were exaggerated, not just in hindsight, but too-good-to-be-true at the time of publication.
Why haven’t those been retracted?
Scrutinizing only the subset of dubious studies that conflicts with our values and ignoring the rest also undermines the public’s trust in science.
I don't understand why the case was allowed to move forward to the Supreme Court once the studies had been retracted. I feel like all of the lawsuits should have been dropped because of this. The court case focused on standing and mostly on what few situations a few of the doctors "might" have experienced or could hypothetically experience in the future. If they couldn't prove that ER visits had gone up significantly due to the extension of the medication to 10-11 weeks and being prescribed via Telehealth, they shouldn't have been able to bring the case up anyway.
Leslie et al, I agree with everything you wrote, and I understand the appeal of having a catch phrase
like Christofascists, but doesn't name calling undermine our role as scientists/ physicians? There is already too much rhetoric on abortion that is based on political views and religion. Your cool catch phrase is really just an " F you" to those we disagree with. So let's be more civil.
Psychologically, these catch phrases often just mask true feelings and displace aggression. Far to easy to personalize our frustraton and practice displaced aggression than to wrestle with the fact that there are good people we disagree with. Not all of them, but some of them. Some opponents of mifepristone are as difficult to love as those in the opposite camp who are equally partisan. But many physicians who support the use of mefepristone will be celebrating a Risen Savior this week, and most followers of Christ are not fascists.
Thank you both for this post. Re the first figure, showing numbers of retracted scientific papers over time, in 5-year bins: although I don't doubt the trend that you're trying to illustrate here, the figure as presented could be misleading because it ignores the rise in numbers of all scientific papers published over the illustrated period. It would make more sense to plot the rate of retractions per thousand (or ten thousand, or whatever) publications. Nonetheless, an informative (though dismaying) post-- thanks again for your work.
Small point: The anti-abortion people who brought the suit against the FDA, claiming an abuse of discretion, are the plaintiffs in the case, not the defendants. The FDA was/is the defendant, and the Biden Administration has taken their side, as is normal when an executive branch agency is sued.
Mifepristone is on the WHO'S List of Essential Medicines. It's use mainly to treat several indifferent auto-immune disorders. There are millions of peoole who take this as a life saving medication on a daily basis. This lawsuit is putting a lot of vulnerable people at risk for political gain that's based in large part in religious beliefs which is also unconstitutional. 11 states have a State Constitutional right to privacy that would make anti-abortion laws unconstitutional on a state level in those states. The Supreme Court shouldn't be hearing this case at all. Our institutions are failing us daily. No one had an issue with mifepristone or it's FDA authorization until the Christofascists got their claws into the GOP. This is bigger than just one medication or abortion. This has major implications for our rights across the board. Remember this when I comes time to vote. Millions of women and girls are counting on us to make this right.
Can we make misuse of health statistics to propagate fallacies a felony? The impact of such actions is far greater than the bodily injury-type felonies that affect one person at a time.
Wow. Just wow. Living with the consequences of the MMR- autism fiasco and its impact on not only MMR vaccine rates and measles outbreaks, but the downstream negative effect on overall vaccine hesitancy, I am overwhelmed.
That this could escape the appropriate scrutiny, something that affects women’s health so deeply, is again overwhelming.
Thank you for sharing this. We can only hope it’s not too late for the court.
I am a "published and "peer-reviewed scientist, and I have been a peer reviewer. That the scientific community caught this almost-certain scientific and intellectual dishonesty is in large part a comforting affirmation of the self-checking power of the scientific publishing process and the power of peer review that extends well past the initial decisions to publish.
Stan, Binghamton, NY
Thank you very much for sharing this information. So often it seems that the parties calling others unethical are actually projecting their own behavior….
It's going to get (has gotten?) much more difficult for peer reviewers and editors to sus out the true motives of authors.
Willful misrepresentation of data for purposes such as "influencing public (or legal) opinion" should be a permanent black ball for the author, and possibly the author's sponsoring organization.
I predict that "science" in the service of intensional deception is going to become a serious issue on many fronts.
Just as we have laws covering defamation to prevent harming someones reputation, I believe we need laws protecting the body of scientific knowledge from being hijacked by people with an ax to grind.
The problem is "how many new descoveries look just like fraud, until they are validated"? How do you get the "study 0" published to alert others to groundbreaking discoveries?
Perhaps better validation of conflict of interest disclosures is needed.
Is this a place where AI has a role, similar to its use in plagiarism detection? Should there be criminal consequences? Contempt of court proceedings when lawyers intentionally mislead and "experts" testify falsely?
Can you please explain why/how these fundamentally flawed papers were published in the first place?
Very important piece, much gratitude to you both.
Once again, thank you so much for your important and vital work explaining the ever increasing non-sensical challenges to public health and beyond. Unbelievable is not a strong enough word anymore for what is happening in this country. Please keep sharing your knowledge so we can share with the brainwashed!
A clear explanation of how the process of scientific publication has its own processes to vet publications that demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor. As you quoted, the retracted paper had "Methodological and statistical concerns: Specifically, “unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions,” “material errors,” and “misleading presentations” of data that “demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor and invalidate the authors’ conclusions in whole or in part.”
Ethical considerations. The authors were members of three pro-life advocacy organizations, despite declaring no conflicts of interest in the study."
More ethical considerations. The peer reviewer (who is supposed to be an unbiased third party) didn’t disclose their conflict of interest— that they know the authors personally.
WOW! Thanks so much for laying out what was behind this withdrawal.
One result of the pandemic is I now view every scientific study/article with skepticism. Who are the authors and sponsors, and what is their motivation?
It seems many of the early studies regarding vaccine effectiveness and efficacy - including charts released by the CDC - were exaggerated, not just in hindsight, but too-good-to-be-true at the time of publication.
Why haven’t those been retracted?
Scrutinizing only the subset of dubious studies that conflicts with our values and ignoring the rest also undermines the public’s trust in science.
Not so shocking. This is the MAGA approach. Lies and deceit rule. And this court has several clerics posing as justices.
I don't understand why the case was allowed to move forward to the Supreme Court once the studies had been retracted. I feel like all of the lawsuits should have been dropped because of this. The court case focused on standing and mostly on what few situations a few of the doctors "might" have experienced or could hypothetically experience in the future. If they couldn't prove that ER visits had gone up significantly due to the extension of the medication to 10-11 weeks and being prescribed via Telehealth, they shouldn't have been able to bring the case up anyway.
Leslie et al, I agree with everything you wrote, and I understand the appeal of having a catch phrase
like Christofascists, but doesn't name calling undermine our role as scientists/ physicians? There is already too much rhetoric on abortion that is based on political views and religion. Your cool catch phrase is really just an " F you" to those we disagree with. So let's be more civil.
Psychologically, these catch phrases often just mask true feelings and displace aggression. Far to easy to personalize our frustraton and practice displaced aggression than to wrestle with the fact that there are good people we disagree with. Not all of them, but some of them. Some opponents of mifepristone are as difficult to love as those in the opposite camp who are equally partisan. But many physicians who support the use of mefepristone will be celebrating a Risen Savior this week, and most followers of Christ are not fascists.
Thank you both for this post. Re the first figure, showing numbers of retracted scientific papers over time, in 5-year bins: although I don't doubt the trend that you're trying to illustrate here, the figure as presented could be misleading because it ignores the rise in numbers of all scientific papers published over the illustrated period. It would make more sense to plot the rate of retractions per thousand (or ten thousand, or whatever) publications. Nonetheless, an informative (though dismaying) post-- thanks again for your work.
Small point: The anti-abortion people who brought the suit against the FDA, claiming an abuse of discretion, are the plaintiffs in the case, not the defendants. The FDA was/is the defendant, and the Biden Administration has taken their side, as is normal when an executive branch agency is sued.