Uncategorized
A BMJ Open study found that five popular AI chatbots gave problematic medical advice about half the time, with nearly
20% of answers judged highly problematic. The main concern is not just outright errors, but that the chatbots often sound confident while giving incomplete, misleading, or hard-to-check guidance. Researchers from the US, Canada, and the UK asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI, Grok, and DeepSeek a set of health questions across five categories. The questions covered areas such as vaccines, cancer, nutrition, and stem cells.
About 50% of the responses were judged problematic, and around 20% were highly problematic. Grok performed worst, with the highest rate of problematic answers, while ChatGPT and Meta AI also scored poorly. Collectively, the chatbots did somewhat better on closed-ended prompts and on topics like vaccines and cancer, but worse on open-ended questions and on areas like nutrition and stem cells.
The authors concluded that this study identifies deficiencies in how generative AI- driven chatbots respond to everyday health and
medical queries in misinformation- prone fields. Approximately half of all outputs were deemed problematic, citations were frequently incomplete or fabricated, and chatbot response readability tended to be complex. Models also responded to adversarial queries without
adequate caveats and with rare refusals to answer. As the use of AI chatbots continues to expand, our data highlight a need for public education, professional training and regulatory oversight to ensure that generative AI supports, rather than erodes, public health.
The paper discloses the danger that people may trust AI advice that sounds authoritative, while it is, in fact, wrong, incomplete or potentially harmful. The researchers stress that these systems are not licensed clinicians and do not have the judgment needed for diagnosis or treatment decisions. Few healthcare professionals will be surprised by these findings.
AI has its uses, no doubt. But it is just a tool and as such it needs to be used wisely. For health questions, it should obviously be treated only as a starting point and never as a substitute for a clinician.
The wave of resident (junior) doctors’ industrial action in the UK began already in 2016. The current regrettable situation started in 2026:
- 1 Feb 2026: BMA announces resident doctors vote 93% yes (53% turnout) for 6 more months of industrial action over pay restoration and training posts.
- 4 Feb 2026: Wes Streeting plans to offer bigger pay rise (at least double the 2.5% NHS-wide for 2026/27) specifically for resident doctors, plus working conditions guarantees.
- 24 Mar 2026: the BMA announces six-day strike (7-13 Apr) after “weeks of talks” break down; accuses government of shifting goalposts by spreading pay over three years.
- 25 Mar 2026: Government issues statement on proposed action; Streeting calls offer “historic” with 3.5% DDRB pay for 2026/27, exam fee reimbursement, and 4,000-4,500 new training posts over three years (1,000 by Apr 2026).
- 26 Mar 2026: Government publishes full “offer to BMA RDC” letter, developed over three months; gives BMA until 2 Apr to reconsider.
- 31 Mar 2026: Keir Starmer issues 48-hour deadline amid row; BMA rejects without member ballot.
- 2 April 2026: Keir Starmer withdraws the offer of additional training posts, and most of us fear that the strike will go ahead.
- As of today, 3 April 2026, the resident doctors’ strike in England is set to go ahead from 7am on Tuesday 7 April to 6.59am on Monday 13 April 2026.
So, is it ethical for doctors to strike?
No firm ethical rules exist on doctors striking. The answer to the question depends on context, patient safety measures, and goals like fair pay versus harm to vulnerable patients. Ethics must consider the balance of doctors’ rights as employees against their duty of care for patients.
Pro
Strikes can be justified as a last resort for systemic fixes, such as pay restoration to retain staff and protect long-term public health. UK analyses argue 2023-2024 strikes were permissible or even supererogatory when addressing government failures in NHS staffing and funding, with minimal disruption to emergencies. Doctors’ human right to strike applies equally, especially if action targets broader patient welfare.
Contra
Critics see strikes as breaching non-maleficence by jeopardising care, risking lives, and eroding trust, especially for time-sensitive cases without full cover. Some ethicists view strikes as permissible only if patient continuity is pre-arranged, viewing them otherwise as a social contract violation where patient interests trump worker demands. In under-resourced systems, strikes burden non-strikers unfairly.
My conclusions
A balanced test for determining whether or not a strike by doctors is ethical includes last-resort status, emergency cover, proportionality of harm versus gains, and public health impact. Guidance by the BMA supports strikes legally/ ethically if these conditions are fulfilled. The UK resident doctor actions currently planned seem to meet these conditions by sustaining emergency care while fighting pay erosion confirmed to amount in real terms to a decrease of 4-26% since 2010s.
Kier Starmer’s withdrawing of training posts seems a somewhat childish reaction and is bound to delay care and raise NHS waiting lists long-term. The BMA calls it sabotage that hurts patients by choking specialty training pipelines when emigration is already unsustainably high (33% of doctors plan to leave UK post-training). The government counters that the strikes cause immediate harm (e.g., cancelled clinics), while posts were a concession BMA demanded yet rejected.
Personally, I feel that both sides have valid arguments. At the same time, both are in the wrong, as they show too little ability to compromise. Both sides have a duty of care to patients which, in my view, includes a duty to reach a rational compromise that benefits patients.
I know, I have posted several times on this topic. As the subject is of such fundamental relevance to so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), I want to try yet again and explain the key characteristics that distinguish science from pseudoscience.
The two often seem to use similar language and they often investe similar subjects. It can therefore be easy to confuse them; in fact, this is exactly what psedoscientists want to achieve. But, there are important differences:
Science
Science is the systematic, rational approach to understand the world. It has 6 crucial characteristics:
- Falsifiability: Scientists formulate hypotheses that they subsequently try to prove wrong. A reasonable hypothesis makes specific, testable predictions that can be put to the test. If the predictions cannot be confirmed, the hypothesis is considered false and must therefore be revised or discarded.
- Empirical evidence: Science relies on measurable evidence, and all claims must be supported by evidence collected through rigorous tests.
- Peer review: Science is published in peer-reviewed journals so that other experts can scrutinize its methods, data, and conclusions.
- Science must be reported such that its findings can be reproduced by a third party. If they are not replicated, something is amiss and the reason must be identified.
- Self-Correction: Science accepts the inevitability of errors and must identify and correct mistakes. As soon as more compelling evidence emerges, scientists revise their position or consensus.
- Skepticism: Scientists are skeptical and require a high standard of evidence before accepting a new claim. They are skeptical about their own hypotheses, rather than just seeking confirmation.
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is the practice of mimicing science without adpoting the rules, rigor and commitment to evidence of science. It also has 6 main characteristics:
- Unfalsifiability: Pseudoscientific claims are vague or so flexible that they cannot be proven wrong. Pseudoscientists dismis contradictory evidence with invalid excuses, or they modify their claims or move the goal-post to accomodate the contradictory evidence.
- Confirmation bias: Pseudoscientists thrive to confirm their own pre-existing beliefs, look for evidence that supports them and ignore evidence that contradicts them.
- Rarety of peer review: Pseudoscientific work is rarely submitted to proper peer-review by independent experts. Instead, it is disseminated through channels that do not insist on scrutiny.
- Dogmatism: Pseudoscientific beliefs do not change change or evolve in response to new and compelling evidence. They remains fixed, regardless of any contradictions brought about by hard evidence.
- Dependence on anecdotes: Pseudoscience tends to rely on personal stories, experience or testimonials which is then elevated to the status of “evidence”.
- Argument from ignorance: Pseudoscientists argue that science cannot explain everything. Therefore they claim that their notions do not require explanations or proof either.
In essence, pseudoscience is an abuse of science. Here are three sentences from the conclusion of my memoir that might serve as an ending of this post:
When science is abused, hijacked or distorted in order to serve political or ideological belief systems, ethical standards will inevitably slip. The resulting pseudoscience is a deceit perpetrated on the weak and the vulnerable. We owe it to ourselves, and to those who come after us, to stand up for the truth, no matter how much trouble this might bring.
Eric S. Kaplan is the President of DISC Centers of America, the largest group of Chiropractic clinics in the U.S.A., utilizing Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression. He has worked with two Presidents of the US and two US Surgeon Generals. He is CEO of Concierge Coaches, the #1 Chiropractic firm in Spinal Decompression and Neuropathy training nationwide.
Kaplan is convinced that “nonsurgical spinal decompression and chiropractic care … are the safest, most effective options for most cases of back pain. Unfortunately, too many people end up in a medical doctor’s office instead of a chiropractor’s office, which accounts for the rampant use of medications and surgery for back pain, particularly in the US. That’s why back surgery, and medical management of back pain in general, is too frequent, too costly, and too ineffective, and why chiropractic care should be the first option when dealing with back pain.”
Even the most superficial look at the data, however, suggests that the evidence for nonsurgical spinal decompression is at best flimsy. While there are studies showing benefits, they often lack control groups or have small sample sizes, making it wrong to draw firm positive conclusions. Therefore, most medical professionals remain skeptical due to the lack of robust evidence.
What sets Kaplan apart from the average chiropractor is not his overblown health claims (as we have seen all too often, such behavior represents the normality in that profession). No, Kaplan is special because he has had a relationship with Trump spanning over 20 years!
Their connection began when Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples, sought chiropractic care from Kaplan for herself and her daughter at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has shown appreciation for chiropractic care and Kaplan’s expertise, even endorsing Kaplan’s book, “Lifestyles of the Fit & Famous“. Kaplan has credited Trump with advancing the chiropractic profession, particularly in expanding chiropractic services in the Department of Veterans Affairs. He described Trump as health-conscious and educated on natural healing, and the two have discussed various topics, including healthcare and wellness.
Kaplan said about his friend Trump and his politics:
- “The future is so bright for our great profession and I believe the majority of chiropractors will be pleasantly surprised when they see the positive changes that take place in Washington.”
- “President Trump has great respect for chiropractic and chiropractors. He understands the power of natural healing.”
- None compared acupuncture to placebo or behavioral therapy.
- Subdomain analysis of the Conners’ Parent Rating Scale indicated that acupuncture and Methylphenidate had comparable effects on Conduct Problems and Learning Problems, but acupuncture was more effective in controlling Impulsive/Hyperactive symptoms. Insufficient sample size prevented confirmation of potential false positives.
- Acupuncture was safer and reduced Methylphenidate-related side-effects, including appetite loss, sleep disturbances, dry mouth, abdominal pain, and constipation.
- Acupuncture combined with behavioral therapy outperformed behavioral therapy alone in improving Psychosomatic symptoms. In the Integrated Visual and Auditory Continuous Performance Test, ADHD patients receiving acupuncture alongside conventional care performed better than those receiving conventional care alone.
- The methodological quality of the included trials was very low to low, with significant bias risk, and 88% lacked follow-up.
- Almost all of the RCTs originated from China, a country that has been shown many times to never reposrt negative findings from acupuncture studies.
- The quality of most RCTs was simal.
- Only 8 RCTs reported safety outcomes (the authors nonetheless conculded that it is also safe and well-tolerated)
I also have my doubts about the authors of this review. There are several reasons for my skepticism, e.g.:
- They failed to discuss the lack of plausibility of acupuncture as a treatment of ADHD.
- They failed to discuss the limitations of the primary trials fully.
- They conclude that acupuncture is safe without having the data to prove it.
- They failed to discuss the well-known bias of Chinese acupuncture researchers.
But the most important reason for my doubt is the authors’ conclusion. Bases on the evidence provied, the correct conclusion must be something along the following lines:
This review shows that there are plenty of positive RCTs of acupuncture for ADHD. However, based on their poor quality, its effectiveness remains unproven.
The aim of this study was to review the deaths associated with chiropractic treatment in Australia. The National Coronial Information System (NCIS) was searched for cases in Australia for which chiropractic treatment was determined to have contributed to death. Closed, completed Australian cases between 1 July 2000 and 31 December 2019 were evaluated (approximately 356,000 cases).
The findings revealed only one case in which chiropractic treatment was considered to have contributed to death. The case was that of an adult male who died from a dissected left vertebral artery following chiropractic manipulation for neck pain.
In addition, postmortem records at Forensic Science SA (FSSA) were searched for similar cases over the same time period (approximately 30,000 cases). No cases definitely attributable to chiropractic manipulation of the neck were found, but a case with thrombus in the left vertebral artery would not be entirely excluded as being related to chiropractic treatment.
Deaths associated with chiropractic manipulation in Australia therefore appear rare. Although there is a reported incidence of stroke associated with vertebrobasilar artery system occlusion following chiropractic manipulation, stroke associated with vertebrobasilar artery occlusion has also been observed following a visit to a primary care physician. This could be explained by vertebrobasilar artery pathology causing neck pain that initiated consultation.
The authors concluded that the present study only demonstrates a rare temporal, but not causal, relationship between attending a chiropractor and vertebral artery dissection causing death. Non-lethal injuries were not assessed.
This is an interesting paper. Many chiropractors steadfastly deny that their manipulations can cause serious problems. This analysis clearly shows that this assumption is untrue. It also suggests that deaths are rare. The question is: how reliable is this conclusion?
The authors searched NCIS and the FSSA for cases for which chiropractic treatment was determined to have contributed to death. In other words, fatalities for which chiropractic treatment had not been determined to have contributed to death were not considered. Because the link between a person’s death and a spinal manipulation might often not be made, further cases of deaths might need to be added to the total.
A further question is this: even if – as we all hope – deaths are very rare, does that mean chiropractic manipulations are safe? Here the answer is clearly NO! Death is merely the most dramatic outcome. Spinal manipulations can cause strokes, and most of these events do result in neurological deficits but not death.
Finally, we need to consider the risk/benefit balance of chiropractic manipulations. As often discussed here, the benefits of spinal manipulation are, depending on the indication, small or uncertain. This means that even rare but serious adverse events weigh heavily and tilt the balance into the negative. In short, this means that chiropractors should be avoided.
In conclusion, this paper leaves no doubt that chiropractic manipulations can be deadly. One would very much hope that such fatalities are extremely rare events, however, the data provided are not convincing.
Around the year 2000, we thought to have eradicated measles. But, thanks to quacks like Andrew Wakefield and charlatans like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., measles are back. The latest measles case count in Texas represents merely a fraction of the true number of infections. Health officials suspect 200 to 300 people in West Texas are infected but untested, and therefore not part of the state’s official tally.
A request for comment from Kennedy about the outbreak received no response!!!
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has sent approximately 2,000 doses of the MMR vaccine to Texas health officials at their request. However, most doses so far are being accepted by partially vaccinated kids to boost their immunity, rather than the unvaccinated. The Texas Tribune reported that vaccine exemptions have increased nearly annually over the last decade. Pro-vaccine groups such as The Immunization Partnership are finding it more challenging to stop mostly Republican lawmakers from pushing across “vaccine-choice” legislation.
- Historic TB outbreak a wake-up call for US policy makers
- Trump and Kennedy fire 5,200 HHS workers and gut the Epidemic Intelligence Service
- The New Mexico Department of Health declared a measles outbreak in a southeastern New Mexico county.
- Bird flu: Warning as elderly woman infected in Wyoming and cat cases confirmed
- Tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas among largest in US history.
THANK YOU, US VOTERS!
As recently as 2019, a quarter more homeopathic remedies were sold than today in Germany, reported the FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG [my translation]. The largest manufacturer is removing individual remedies from its range and most state medical associations have cancelled the corresponding training courses for doctors.
Demand for homeopathic remedies continued to fall in 2024: while a good 45 million packs were sold in 2023, the number fell to around 43 million in 2024. The number of remedies dispensed on prescription fell even more sharply by 14 per cent from just under one million to just over 830,000.
According to the official pharmacy retail price, the total turnover of homeopathic remedies in 2024 was 779 million Euros. In 2019, sales were still around 834 million Euros, with around 56 million packs sold, a quarter more than last year.
This development is reflected in the companies’ figures. According to the annual report of the Willmar Schwabe Group, which includes Deutsche Homöopathie-Union (DHU), one of the largest manufacturers, sales in 2023 were negative in the ‘tense homeopathy environment’, some individual products had become unprofitable ‘and are being withdrawn from marketing’.
Homeopathy is repeatedly criticised due to the absence of active ingredients in the highly diluted remedies. Most state medical associations have cancelled corresponding additional training courses in recent years, including the medical association in Baden-Württemberg in 2024.
Just over a year ago, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach announced plans to remove the possibility for health insurance companies to reimburse homeopathic and anthroposophic remedies as part of so-called statutory benefits. However, these plans have not yet been realized.
_________________________
A dismayed fan of homeopathy posted on ‘X’ [my translation]: “Homeopathy is on the retreat? Well, conventional medicine has successfully fought off the competition. They no longer want to share. They don’t care what happens to the patients.”
I don’t think this is quite true! What has happened is more simple and has little to do with competition. The evidence that homeopathy generates more good than harm is clearly not positive. Therefore – in the name of evidence, consumer protection, suffering patients and medical ethics – it is unavoidable that homeopathy is in decline. In fact, it seems surprising that it is still being reimbursed!
Although acupuncture is widely used by patients with chronic sciatica, the evidence of its efficacy is scarce. The objective of this multicenter 2-arm randomized clinical trial, conducted in 6 tertiary-level hospitals in China, was to investigate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture in patients with chronic sciatica from herniated disk. Participants were recruited from March 25, 2021, to September 23, 2021, with a final follow-up through September 22, 2022. Data analyses were performed from December 2022 to March 2023.
Participants were randomly assigned to receive:
- 10 sessions of acupuncture (n = 110) or
- 10 sessions of sham acupuncture (n = 110) over 4 weeks.
Participants, outcome assessors, and statisticians were blinded.
The 2 primary outcomes were changes in visual analog scale (VAS) for leg pain and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) from baseline to week 4. Secondary outcomes were adverse events.
A total of 216 patients (mean [SD] age, 51.3 [15.2] years; 147 females [68.1%] and 69 males [31.9%]) were included in the analyses. The VAS for leg pain decreased:
- 30.8 mm in the acupuncture group,
- 14.9 mm in the sham acupuncture group at week 4 (mean difference,
−16.0; 95% CI, −21.3 to −10.6; P < .001).
The ODI decreased:
- 13.0 points in the acupuncture group,
- 4.9 points in the sham acupuncture group at week 4 (mean difference, −8.1; 95%
CI, −11.1 to −5.1; P < .001).
For both VAS and ODI, the between-group difference became apparent starting in week 2 (mean difference, −7.8; 95% CI, −13.0 to −2.5; P = .004 and −5.3; 95% CI, −8.4 to −2.3; P = .001, respectively) and persisted through week 52 (mean difference, −10.8; [95% CI, −16.3 to −5.2; P < .001; and −4.8; 95% CI, −7.8 to −1.7; P = .003, respectively). No serious adverse events occurred.
The authors concluded that this randomized clinical trial found that in patients with chronic sciatica from herniated disk, acupuncture resulted in less pain and better function compared with sham acupuncture at week 4, and these benefits persisted through week 52.
Acupuncture should be considered as a potential treatment option for patients with chronic sciatica from a herniated disk.
At first glance, this certainly looks like a rigorous and well-reported study. Yet, at a second glance, multiple concerns emerge about its reliability. Here are some of my reasons:
- The study was started 3 years ago and concluded in 2022; I am wondering why it took 2 years to get it published.
- A clinical trial with ~200 patients cannot reasonably assume to “investigate the safety” of a therapy.
- I am amazed that the trialists found >200 patients with severe chronic sciatica who did not take any medication (In my experience, 100% of these patients take something against their pain). Those who did were told to stop them and renter the trial after a washout phase; I am wondering whether this would pass an ethics committee in a Western country.
- The authors state that all verum patients experienced de qi. It is not my experience that 100% of patients excerience this sensation during acupuncture.
- The therapists were told to follow a standardised protocol. Yet I doubt that they were not able to influece patients by their verbal or non-verbal communication – after all, they had a poweful vested interest to generate a positive result.
- The authors state that blinding the therapist is not possible in trials of acupuncture. I disagree.
- The authors report that they tested the degree to which patients were unblinded and state “patients were unaware of assigned treatments”. I find this utterly implausible. There are several reasons for my disbelief: 1) sham patients did not experience de qi, according to the authors., while the verum patients are said to have experienced this sensation with each of the 5 needles inserted at each of the 10 session. 2) While in the verum group the needles were manipulated and left in place for 30 minutes, this did not happen in the sham group. I cannot believe that these differences did not prompt a large degree of de-blinding.
We have often reported that acupuncture trials from China invariably report positive results. We have also repeatedly mentioned that >80% of Chinese clinical trials are said to be fabricated. If I consider all of this and look at the results of this study critically, I have to say that I find them far too good to be true.
I have mentioned the infamous paper by Frass et al several times:
- Homeopathy’s most prominent researcher, Prof Michael Frass, has been found guilty of “data falsification, fabrication and manipulation”
- Michael Frass’ research into homeopathy for cancer: “numerous breaches of scientific integrity”
- An update on the dubious cancer study by Prof Michael Frass et al
- A thorough analysis of Prof M. Frass’ recent homeopathy trial casts serious doubts on its reliability
Now the journal THE ONCLOLOGIST that published the study (previously been deemed fraudulent by an independent agency) has finally reacted – not by a retraction but by a ‘correction’. Here is what RETRACTION WATCH just published about it:
A paper that claimed to show a homeopathic intervention improved quality of life and survival for people with advanced lung cancer has received an extensive correction two years after a research integrity watchdog asked the journal to retract the article over concerns about manipulated data, Retraction Watch has learned.
The two scientists who sounded the alarm on the paper are not satisfied with the correction, they told us.
The article, “Homeopathic Treatment as an Add‐On Therapy May Improve Quality of Life and Prolong Survival in Patients with Non‐Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Prospective, Randomized, Placebo‐Controlled, Double‐Blind, Three‐Arm, Multicenter Study,” appeared in The Oncologist in November 2020. Michael Frass, the lead author of the paper, is a homeopathic practitioner who was working at the Medical University of Vienna, at the time the work was published.
The paper has been cited 18 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, and was included in a German medical organization’s guideline about complementary treatment for cancer patients. Many homeopathy organizations posted about the study on X as evidence of the approach’s benefit, helping propel the article to the top 5% of all research articles for which Altmetric, a publication data company, has tracked online attention.
Norbert Aust, a retired mechanical engineer who started the Homeopathy Information Network in Germany, and Viktor Weisshäupl, a retired anesthesiologist now working on the Initiative for Scientific Medicine in Austria. The pair undertook an analysis of the study protocols and data posted to ClinicalTrials.gov.
They found several differences between the initial registration posted in January 2012, a protocol dated January 2011 but uploaded in July 2019, and the published paper. These differences included the number of participants, study arms, exclusion criteria, follow-up time, and cancer types included in the study. Aust and Weisshäupl also noted the study protocol said the software the authors used to analyze their data was a version not yet available in 2011.
“In conclusion, it seems likely that the substantial modifications of crucial study parameters that occurred after the study had been started and results had become available biased the results in favor of homeopathy,” Aust and Weisshäupl wrote in a description of their findings on Edzard Ernst’s blog in June 2021.
According to another article Aust and Weisshäupl published in Skeptical Inquirer in 2023, the pair reported their findings to the Medical University Vienna, which referred the matter to the Austrian Agency for Scientific Integrity.
In a report dated September 2022 and obtained by Retraction Watch, the Austrian watchdog said its investigation “found numerous manipulations,” and asked The Oncologist’s editor in chief Susan Bates to retract the article.
Among the findings:
- “The presentation of the study as double-blind placebo controlled is untrue.”
- “Substantial” changes to the study protocol while it was running, including to the primary endpoint, that were not mentioned in the publication, “suggestive of data manipulation.”
- “Many patients were excluded post-hoc, which is suggestive of data manipulation.”
- “Fully implausible” survival data, “compatible with selective deletion of records.”
- “The patients in the homeopathy group report a quality of life that is much higher than that of the general population known from other surveys. For patients with stage four non-small cell lung cancer this is highly implausible.”
The Oncologist published an expression of concern in October 2022 citing “credible information from the Austrian Agency for Research Integrity about potential data falsification and data manipulation in this article.”
“While The Oncologist editorial team investigates and communicates with the corresponding author, the editors are publishing this Expression of Concern to alert readers that, pending the outcome and review of a full investigation, the research results presented may not be reliable,” the notice stated.
On Tuesday, the journal published an extensive correction to the article, stating:
Additional details not included in the original publication have since been provided by the authors and reviewed by the editors to clarify these concerns. These omissions do not affect the results of this study.
Frass told us he and his team were “pleased that after a profound and thorough investigation by The Oncologist it has now been proven that the paper is correct. The Commission’s allegations are unsubstantiated and completely unfounded.” He provided a diagram he and a friend made which he said showed “all allegations could be refuted adequately.”
Along with the correction, the journal published an editorial by Bates and another editor describing how The Oncologist published the paper in a section dedicated to the results of clinical trials that might not otherwise be posted. It concluded:
The Oncologist and its CTR section hope that—by turning to the laboratory to determine whether any fraction of a homeopathic remedy holds a thread of promise—science identifies what is in these mixtures and that, in turn, potential anticancer compounds are then developed through conventional pathways.
We reached out to Bates for comment, and received the following response from a spokesperson for Oxford University Press, the journal’s publisher:
In 2022 The Oncologist received a letter about “Homeopathic Treatment as an Add-On Therapy May Improve Quality of Life and Prolong Survival in Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Prospective, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind, Three-Arm, Multicenter Study” from the Commission for Research Integrity of the Austrian Agency for Research Integrity (OeAWI) and the journal issued an expression of concern. The journal has since conducted a thorough investigation and based on guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), determined that a correction is the appropriate response to the concerns raised. The accompanying editorial provides further context. The correction and editorial are the journal’s full response.
The correction doesn’t address the issues Aust, Weisshäupl, and the Austrian Agency for Scientific Integrity found with the study, Aust told us.
“They explain some trifles,” he said, “but the elephant in the room is not mentioned.” He also wondered why a letter to the editor he and Weisshäupl submitted in 2021 had not been published.
The editorial’s question of whether some components in the homeopathic intervention could be therapeutic “is completely irrelevant,” Aust said.
“If some results are obtained by data manipulation and falsification, then it is pointless to argue if there might have been some effect by the preparations that were administered,” he said. “The data are not valid and it is wrong, unethical and might cause harm for patients if they stay published like solid outcomes of some rigorous trial.”
___________________________
Because a group of experts including myself is working on our own response to this affair, I will, for now, abstain from any further comment and hope that my readers find the above article by RETRACTION WATCH enlightening.
