What Will Happen To "Gold Standard Science?"
A few weeks ago in his confirmation hearings, Kennedy quoted a paper that helped him get confirmed. Was it "gold-standard science?"
Secretary Kennedy likes to say he is for "gold standard science." Really?
Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H. and Jay Bhattacharya, with 0 basic research or therapeutic clinical trials papers between them, are in confirmation hearings this week as heads of FDA and NIH. Both are editors of a shady new Journal of the Academy of Public Health. Calling other journals "dead" and the medical establishment "broken." Really?
All three entrusted with "increasing methodological rigor" of our medical research. Really?
Is that what we have come to - an antivaxxer in charge of methodological rigor?
My thoughts on this disaster - just out in The New Republic.
Literally a few weeks ago in his confirmation hearings, Kennedy quoted the latest paper that again postulated vaccines as the cause of autism. But besides all the conflicts of interest (everyone involved - the journal, sponsors, author - are friends of Kennedy's) - this paper is exceedingly poor quality. The author, Anthony Mawson, told me that the data company they used unexpectedly went out of business before they were even done with the project, so they just published what they had. Really?
Same for the inaugural paper in the Journal of the Academy of Public Health. Let alone the authors include a self-described "fringe data analyst" seen on his x account smiling in a bar with Bhattacharya (the editor). The quality of the paper itself, again, is exceedingly poor. And the two "peer reviewers" - both editors-in-chief of said journal (Really?) had 0 issues with it.
It's one thing to publish a junk paper in a quack journal. But try getting a drug approved around the world. Global health authorities - Japan, Europe, Switzerland, UK, China, Australia, Canada, just to name a few - will rip the data into shreds. Every discrepancy, every data issue, big and small, will need to be addressed and discussed, and in some cases, approval is denied. That is "gold standard science."
And now it's about to be put the hands of inexperienced political operatives and anti-establishment Trump loyalists. Worse, they have pro-business agendas (don't be fooled by anti-pharma rhetoric), and want to dismantle the regulatory checks accordingly.
The damage to the integrity of science, around the world, will last for generations.