Quick, hide the data
Oyyy.
Uh, yeah, because that’s the whole point.
“Prominent torturer Fiendy Painmaker has refused to publish data from a study of torture, fearing that the results will be weaponized by critics of torture.”
Listen up, Johanna Olsen-Kennedy: the whole point of medical studies (as of course you know perfectly well) is to determine whether they are beneficial or the other thing. If a study finds out that X is the other thing, aka harmful, it’s not your job to hide the data on the grounds that critics of X will cite it in order to prevent further harm. You’re not supposed to want to keep perpetrating harm.
The researcher’s claim that the subjects started with great mental health and stayed stable is in conflict with the observation that one quarter were suicidal, too.
This is what happens when you start promoting a treatment before studies have shown it to be benificient. You convince yourself it is benificient and then you see any indication that it isn’t as some kind of fluke, that musn’t be allowed to turn people away from “treatment”.
I saw the same fenomenom in a dutch documentary, where a researcher claimed it would be unethical to do double blind research into gender treatement, because that would mean a group of people wouldn’t get the treatment and withholding some people treatment would be unethical.