Medical Journals

Medical journals are in a state of flux and politics and financial interests have never played a bigger share of what gets published.

Peer-review and the celebrity status of Journals in no indicator of the quality of the science. The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, dry technical journals like The Journal of Clinical Microbiology-- they are all quite ready to publish papers lacking rigor, claiming support of a conclusion lacking any real evidence. of any sort.

Peer review often involves sending a paper written by an extremist to three other like-minded academics with the same opinions to rubber-stamp the study.

Journals rarely print corrections of the bad science and errors because editors do not want to highlight their failings. Specialists in a field do not want to criticize other specialist because their careers might depend agreeing with self-appointed authorities. Scientists in other fields do not object to bad science because they may not see it and, if they do, they feel it inappropriate to venture outside of the specialty.

Independent monitoring, outside of the academic and governmental funding influences is necessary to evaluate any research, regardless of where it is published.