As Richard Smith, former editor-in-chief of the BMJ, wrote medical journals “can move medicine forward, less through providing a clear direction of travel but more through highlighting the deficiencies of the present and providing a hundred ideas on how to do better.”
During the pandemic articles on COVID were open access as paywalls were temporarily removed. That allowed for unprecedented sharing of published opinion and study data. It also allowed a broader readership that fostered more critical interpretation and it reduced subscriber bias. The dogmatic belief that JAMA, Lancet and NEJM could do no wrong was challenged. That kind of debate is also important for the health of our evidence based medicine.
The only reason "medical" science journals exists is to promote big pharma drugs. That's it, period. I seriously doubt that more than 1/4 of most journal articles are anywhere near truthful. If 80-90% of all articles were completely truthful, big pharma would be out of business.
The layman would never know what is real or not and the peer reviews are a joke since those peers are all big pharma shills and drug runners or paid off to agree and look the other way.
'In short: scientific journals made up of editorials, commentaries, reviews, viewpoints, podcasts, interviews, videos.' The most important part of the best journals are actually not included in your list, data-driven original studies. These can be anecdotal reports of series or randomized controlled trials. Editorials provoked by these studies are helpful for readers. Do you agree?
Your suggestion in the second to last paragraph is on point; to foster discussion. I have found the most valuable section of journals is the Comment & Response or other similar section in which questions and critiques are made on various topics - the heart of the matter is really borne out much more fully when there is some dialogue rather than one-sided projection.
Because I am not an academic and have no reason to subscribe to a medical journal, I have no way to read paywalled research studies. Wolters Kluwer does a fine job of preventing me from reviewing studies, although journalists are given copies free so they can hype the results. So I cannot review whatever information or misinformation is reported about these studies in the public media. Until the public has access to research studies, paywalled research studies have an air of propaganda about them.
Whilst the integrity of major scientific journals such as the Lancet, BMJ and New England Journal of Medicine use to be cast iron. It strike me that these days they are little more than propagandist comics pushing the narrative of the establishment and ignoring or censoring dissent. The same applies to so called man made global warming were cyclic theories are actively suppressed in favour of net zero etc.
Covid 19 just exposed this whole exercise in control to scrutiny from a wider audience and certainly alerted many people including myself to the fact that so called experts and scientist are often nothing more than paid for shills for which ever vested interest has bough them.
I was associate editor and published in the journal I worked for as it was the top journal in my discipline. I published other places and perhaps was unique as the articles were medical science with no political slant at all. There are a few top medical Journals that publish politically motivated papers that reflect a preferred narratives or outcomes. They even refuse letters to editor that point our shortcomings of papers written by scientist involved with the work that withdrew their name fr0m the papers out of concern. Sadly you cannot trust all "scientific" journals. Beware of the ones that get a lot of lay press coverage of their papers.
È un discorso interessante. Felice di leggere il tuo intervento su Sensibile Medicine. Mi piacerebbe leggere qualcosa per approfondirlo, italiano o inglese è uguale. A parte i Papers di Ioannadis, altri consigli, per un profano?
I suggest open source and free debate to untangle the dogma from the data interpretation and or data manipulation
Often paradigms are changed from without an industry by fresh eyes
I have a new take on lung physiology
I present my article
We breathe air not oxygen
Air is measured by its moisture or humidity
Oxygen is calibrated by its dryness. For example: medical oxygen has 67ppm of water contamination
Lung alveoli requires air to reach 100% humidity
Can you see the problem?
Oxygen toxicity can be explained by its ability to dehydrate the airway mucosa and the alveoli
Q: if the lungs are not performing the gaseous exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, what are they doing?
Please read with curiosity and ponder
https://open.substack.com/pub/jane333/p/we-breath-air-not-oxygen?utm_source=direct&r=ykfsh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
During the pandemic articles on COVID were open access as paywalls were temporarily removed. That allowed for unprecedented sharing of published opinion and study data. It also allowed a broader readership that fostered more critical interpretation and it reduced subscriber bias. The dogmatic belief that JAMA, Lancet and NEJM could do no wrong was challenged. That kind of debate is also important for the health of our evidence based medicine.
The only reason "medical" science journals exists is to promote big pharma drugs. That's it, period. I seriously doubt that more than 1/4 of most journal articles are anywhere near truthful. If 80-90% of all articles were completely truthful, big pharma would be out of business.
The layman would never know what is real or not and the peer reviews are a joke since those peers are all big pharma shills and drug runners or paid off to agree and look the other way.
'In short: scientific journals made up of editorials, commentaries, reviews, viewpoints, podcasts, interviews, videos.' The most important part of the best journals are actually not included in your list, data-driven original studies. These can be anecdotal reports of series or randomized controlled trials. Editorials provoked by these studies are helpful for readers. Do you agree?
Your suggestion in the second to last paragraph is on point; to foster discussion. I have found the most valuable section of journals is the Comment & Response or other similar section in which questions and critiques are made on various topics - the heart of the matter is really borne out much more fully when there is some dialogue rather than one-sided projection.
Wonderful piece. Thanks Luca!
Because I am not an academic and have no reason to subscribe to a medical journal, I have no way to read paywalled research studies. Wolters Kluwer does a fine job of preventing me from reviewing studies, although journalists are given copies free so they can hype the results. So I cannot review whatever information or misinformation is reported about these studies in the public media. Until the public has access to research studies, paywalled research studies have an air of propaganda about them.
Whilst the integrity of major scientific journals such as the Lancet, BMJ and New England Journal of Medicine use to be cast iron. It strike me that these days they are little more than propagandist comics pushing the narrative of the establishment and ignoring or censoring dissent. The same applies to so called man made global warming were cyclic theories are actively suppressed in favour of net zero etc.
Covid 19 just exposed this whole exercise in control to scrutiny from a wider audience and certainly alerted many people including myself to the fact that so called experts and scientist are often nothing more than paid for shills for which ever vested interest has bough them.
I was associate editor and published in the journal I worked for as it was the top journal in my discipline. I published other places and perhaps was unique as the articles were medical science with no political slant at all. There are a few top medical Journals that publish politically motivated papers that reflect a preferred narratives or outcomes. They even refuse letters to editor that point our shortcomings of papers written by scientist involved with the work that withdrew their name fr0m the papers out of concern. Sadly you cannot trust all "scientific" journals. Beware of the ones that get a lot of lay press coverage of their papers.
È un discorso interessante. Felice di leggere il tuo intervento su Sensibile Medicine. Mi piacerebbe leggere qualcosa per approfondirlo, italiano o inglese è uguale. A parte i Papers di Ioannadis, altri consigli, per un profano?
https://youtu.be/no_elVGGgW8