[Foundation-l] Funding Sources of Medical Research, was Misplaced Reliance, was Re: Paid editing...

[John Vandenberg]

By flagging a piece of research as 'funding by ACME Big Pharma', we
suggest that the research is somehow flawed, without clearly saying
it, without any evidence, and without sources that support our
suggestion.

This is akin to adding categories which are not unambiguously
supported by prose and references in the body of an article.

We should not cast sources into a bad light by suggesting their
research is clouded by the funding unless reliable sources have said
so first.

Often the problem is _not_ that the research which is published is
bad, but that unfavourable research is not published.  In this case,
casting a shadow over the published work does not help the reader, and
does not impact upon the unpublished research.

Wikipedia should not be used as a platform to attack the systemic
problem of industry funded research in some areas of medicine.

We have articles about this topic; that should be the extent of the platform.

Respected journals have occasionally been caught out, and they are
becoming more astute about checking the submissions.  It is
appropriate that journals expect that researchers provide information
to _them_ about potential conflict of interests, so it can be
available for peer-reviewers both before and after publishing.  Where
it is failing, journalists and researchers need to highlight the
problems, and journal editors need to improve their processes to
prevent the problem, or at least ensure that the researchers have
breached their policies when the problems are exposed.

--
John Vandenberg