The following extracts are from articles which examine unpalatable truths about peer review and have strong relevancy to the medical politics of ME/CFS.

The New York Times - Health June 2002
"When Peer Review Yields Unsound Science"
by Lawrence K Altman, M.D.

[Summarising the 34 articles published from their latest meeting on peer review, Dr Drummond Rennie a deputy editor of the Journal of American Medical Association wrote]

"Once again we publish studies that fail to show any dramatic effect, let alone improvement, brought about by editorial peer review.

"In 1986, Dr Stephen Lock , then editor of the British Medical Journal, wrote, "Editors, the arbiters of rigor, quality and innovativeness in publishing scientific work, do not apply to their own work the standards they apply to judging the work of others."

15 August 2002
Doug Fraser posted to Co-Cure extracts discussing peer review from "Conduct and Misconduct in Science" by David Goodstein, Professor of Physics and Vice-Provost at California Institute of Technology.
www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/conduct.html
Excerpts:
"The institution of peer review is now in critical danger."

"Peer review is not at all well suited, however to adjudicate an intense competition for scarce resources such as research funds or pages in prestigious journals. The reason is obvious enough. The referee, who is always among the few genuine experts in the field, has an obvious conflict of interest. . . referees are never called to account for what they write in their reviews. As a result, referees are able, with relative impunity to delay or deny funding or publication to their rivals. When misconduct of this kind occurs, it is the referee who is guilty but it is the editors and program officers who are responsible for propagating a corrupt system that makes misconduct almost inevitable."

New Scientist, Opinion viewpoint 22 September 2001, p.46-470
"Trust me, I'm a scientist" - by Arnold Relman, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine 1977-1991, now emeritus professor of medicine, Harvard University.

"Medical research is unlike other technology, in that doctors have a responsibility to put the welfare of their patients above everything else. Doctors use their best judgement , their best information and their best efforts to do what they think is in their patients' best interests. The commercialisation of medical research is a threat to the welfare of patients and to the special relationship between doctors and patients. That relationship is now being assaulted on all sides by money."

Chris Hunter

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