Guest post: Shopping for favorable reviews
Originally a comment by Claire on Losing sight of women’s rights.
If you have not witnessed these kind of shenanigans, then you are lucky. I am aware of several, including stories about the infamous Wakefield autism paper that should have gotten the editor fired, although in this case it was the other way around.
Two people I know were reviewers, who roundly rejected the paper citing grave concerns about methodology, result and conclusions. One said to me that they didn’t even think the introduction was good, failing to cite some seminal work that would have rather undermined his central premise. Two bad reviews from respected authors in the field should have been enough to kill it. Instead the editor (or more likely the associate editor) reviewer shopped until they got the number of reviews they needed to proceed to publication.
It was outrageously unethical behavior and it’s always been disappointing to me that the Lancet did not thoroughly audit their processes afterwards. Nor was the internal audit at the Royal Free any more than window dressing. Dismissing it as one bad apple, no attempt was made to discover how a bad apple was able to operate with impunity without ethics approval. Despite the fact they supported him long after it was clear something fishy was going on.
I’m an associate editor for a journal and I can tell you it’s hard getting reviewers. To collect as many as this one did, is very unusual, not to mention a lot of work. It still staggers me that every step of the peer review process, which is meant to prevent this kind of thing failed.
The same is true in this instance. If a paper has been accepted and does not contain lies or inaccuracies, how does someone biased get into the process?
Claire adds: I would state that I am not a first-hand witness to these events. I am relating to you only what I was told, although I have no reason to doubt its veracity.
Wow, that was outrageously unethical behaviour. Whoever was responsible for the review process at the Lancet needs to accept responsibility for their part in the revival of the anti-vaccine cult and the demonisation of autism.
@tigger_the_wing It makes my blood boil every time I think about it, even 15 years after I first heard these stories. As an autism researcher it makes me sick that we still have to deal with the damage Wakefield did to parental confidence, public understanding and autistic people themselves.
He should have gone to prison in my view. He actually broke the laws that prescribe how clinical research must be performed that are very strict, even more so in children.
This wasn’t a screw-up or a misunderstanding. He knew he was breaking the rules and didn’t care. The man is pure evil.
Claire, this is one of my pet peeves, as well. And my mother-in-laws home health nurse bought it hook, line, and sinker, advising her daughter not to have her baby vaccinated. My mother-in-law, a truly crotchety delightful person, responded by saying “She might as well just throw him in the lake if she’s not going to vaccinate!”
I also have had students utilize the online forums in my class to urge other students not to vaccinate their children. I try to step in on these and use them as an educational lesson in critical thinking, but unfortunately when students complain, I get called on the carpet for “taking a political position”. Huh? I am taking a scientific position, and the science points one direction, and that is away from Wakefield.
And one of my student this last semester on their final paper was able to find anti-vax papers published by reputable sources, and assumed it must be true, or they wouldn’t have published it. Which is the worst of the Lancet thing, because the moment someone with letters after their name says something, it can’t be unsaid.