Here are a few updates and extensions to earlier posts on blog.bioethics.net:
Academic journal deja vu
A few weeks back two researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center reported in Nature that they had found evidence of thousands of duplicated and plagiarized articles in biomedical journals. The researchers used a text analyzer called eTBLAST to turn up suspicious articles. And now results from the program have led a journal to make a retraction. The Harvard Crimson reports that Best Practices & Research: Clinical Rheumatology pulled a 2004 review article last week after it was found to contain many sections copied from a 2003 article in the journal Expert Opinion on Drug Safety. And get this: the two authors — the copier and the copied — knew each other.
Zetia situation demonstrates need for a more open clinical trial process
Just a day after we posted Alan Milstein’s take on the delay in the release of research into the (lack of) effectiveness of Zetia, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that many unflattering studies about the effectiveness of antidepressants have never been published. And when those studies are taken into account, the drugs outperform placebos by only a modest margin.
Even the winners eventually lose
Around the beginning of the year we posted about the ongoing fight over whether the NFL or its players union should be doing more to help retired players with their injuries. This past weekend the Washington Post Magazine told the story of former defensive lineman Dave Pear, whose body and mind have been wrecked by playing the game. Count how many times in this passage he asks the story’s author, Michael Leahy, if he’d like a glass of water:
Back in his kitchen, Pear looks around, his face a mask of confusion. “What did I come in here for?” He digs his cane hard on the wood floor, pivots, stumbles, grabs a counter to steady himself. His blue eyes survey a pile of papers on the kitchen table. “What was I doing?”
He squints and shakes his head. “Oh, forget it.” He decides he wants out of the kitchen, anyway. “Warmer upstairs in the bedroom. I need some water. Would you like some water?” He pours two glasses. “God, I’m tired.” He gulps, pushes off on his cane and, halfway up a flight of stairs leading toward his bedroom, he brightens. “Hey, I’ll read a letter I got from a fan. He’s a big fan. I’ll show you my office.”
The office is in his closet, actually. Inside, he has set his computer on a tiny table and squeezed in a chair. The setup is near the bed he shares with his wife of 27 years, Heidi. Between the bed and his office-closet rests a red laundry basket, which is holding what looks like the random booty of a scavenger hunter — a thick belt, scraps of paper, a scuffed-up old football, a purple-and-gold blanket. Most of the items are mementos from his glory days, which began at the University of Washington. He digs under the pile in the basket and gingerly lifts things. A black leather weight belt, meant to protect his back and torso, which he used when he was squatting and bench-pressing close to 500 pounds. The game ball awarded him after a Washington victory over Syracuse in 1973. An MVP trophy for his play at Washington.
“I got my Super Bowl jersey around here somewhere,” he says. He fingers the deflated football. “This is old, isn’t it? Old like me.” He puts it back in the red basket and looks around.
“Would you like some water?” he asks.
I point out he’s already poured me some.
“Okay.” He looks around. “What are we doing?”
I remind him, and he nods. He finds the letter from the fan, an Army lieutenant colonel from Vienna, Va., named Matt Ferguson, who writes that his nickname is “Mad Dog.”
“I like that,” Pear says. ” Mad Dog.”
He slowly reads the words of Matt Ferguson: “I am a recently returned veteran of the Iraq War . . . I grew up admiring the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for their grit and honor. I am especially fond of you being the first Buccaneer ever selected to the Pro Bowl . . . I have attempted to pattern my military career after your example. I have always admired your tenacity and dignity in those early years.
Congratulations on your selection as the 19th Greatest Player in Buccaneers history. It would be a huge honor if you could sign the enclosed photo of yourself in one of your games for my new Man Room. God Bless. — Mad Dog.”
Pear grins. “That’s from a fan, a fan named –” He stops and flips the letter over for a reminder. “Mad Dog,” he says. He lifts the game ball from the red basket, stares at it, puts it back. “Would you like a glass of water or something?” he asks.