Aug 20, 2020
E. Rosalie Li, interdisciplinary public health Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
https://open.spotify.com/episode/00YhE7JWhwgYKRD9SrnkEI?si=kDWeiGLVRxqsvXUAZeUpSg
The controversial study gave hope to the world. That was before scientists discovered the trial contained worrisome flaws. Whether the drug helped people heal faster, this study never had the potential to tell us.
Upon reviewing the paper, one finds numerous errors so extreme that it is difficult to understand how it got published. How could this research have undergone peer review and emerged in such a state?
This is where the story lies. Ultimately, the study revealed a profound truth: studies may be so flawed as to defy belief in their publication and still mislead the public as if the results had been accurate.
Information found below the author's YouTube video.
Information found below the author's YouTube video.
An ethics committee green-lighted the 14-day study on March 6th, 2020. If the trial began the next day, then March 20th was the earliest date they could have finished. Researchers presented early trial results, yet to be reviewed by outsiders, for the first time on March 16th via YouTube.
Also, on March 16th, the team submitted the findings to the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents. The journal accepted by March 17th, publishing on March 20th. This left a one-to-two-day period for the peer-review process, which may ordinarily take months.
The strangest aspect of this paper's journey to publication may be that, once the results were uploaded to preprint servers where anyone could access them, a more thorough external review did not appear to have occurred.
Over 40,000 COVID-19-related preprint studies have been accepted quickly, sought review, and published formally a month or two later with the needed corrections.
https://miro.medium.com/max/621/0*7uHmO5RKhC8NGg7U
Peer review involves having someone with expert-level knowledge read and critique a paper. Ideally, this person would disagree with you, as they would be more likely to spot weaknesses in your arguments. Asking someone outside the field would be akin to asking a classical pianist to diagnose strange noises from your car. Reviewing your own work would be like grading your own homework.
If peer-review happened as the journal claims, the job was so poor as to be undetectable. That isn’t said metaphorically. The paper submitted for review shows no differences from the original.
Scientists reviewed the document before it was published and compared the earliest version to the journal’s published version. The earlier draft came from a Google Drive version circulated among scientists before March 16th.