By David Tuller, DrPH When researchers cite fraudulent studies in support of their claims, it is best not to take anything they write at face value. That is ...
virology.ws
When researchers cite fraudulent studies in support of their claims, it is best not to take anything they write at face value. That is certainly the case with
a recent paper titled
“Persistent physical symptoms not explained by structural abnormalities or disease processes: a primary care approach to promote recovery,” published earlier this month in the
Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care. (I use “fraudulent” here not in the legal sense but in the sense of “deceptive” or “deceitful.”)
As evidence of something or other, the paper’s references include both the fraudulent PACE trial, whose reported findings have been discredited and rejected by leading medical authorities, and a fraudulent pediatric trial of the Lightning Process, in which the investigators violated core methodological principles of scientific research. (The Lightning Process, a woo-woo “brain retraining” program, was created by osteopath and former spiritual healer Phil Parker, who once claimed to be able to diagnose people’s ailments by stepping into their bodies for a look-see.)