CHERRY PICKING THE EVIDENCE: IS IT OK TO CHERRY-PICK SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH?
The Cambridge Dictionary describes cherry-picking thusly: To pick only the best people or things from a group, so that only people or things that are less good remain. Example; The new schools were accused of cherry-picking the best students in the area. In basketball, ‘cherry-pickers’ are the persons who never leave the back court, waiting for a teammate to get a defensive rebound (or maybe even a quick inbound after a made basket), make a long pass over the defense and get easy buckets.
While cherry picking is frowned upon in playground basketball games, it’s certainly not always a bad thing. For instance, it’s nice that you get to “cherry-pick” which features you want on your BRAND NEW YUGO. However, it’s been allowed within the scientific community for so long that they now think it’s OK. One of the ways we commonly see this in the form of INVISIBLE & ABANDONED STUDIES.
The way it works is simple; BIG PHARMA sees that a study is not progressing the way they hoped it would. Through hook or crook, they get the institutions or universities they are funding (that’s right, none of this research is really independent) to either A; not complete the study, or B; not publish the study. Either way, industry gets to “cherry-pick” what the public learns about their products (drugs and devices) & services (procedures and surgeries). Although this problem is absurdly common (we know that only about half of the pharmaceutical industry’s studies are ever published – HERE), there are two examples that immediately come to mind.
The first is TAMIFLU; the antiviral medication that was approved by the FDA despite an ability to shorten the normal course of the FLU by approximately 9%, and the second being SSRI ANTIDEPRESSANTS. The problem with not publishing studies on SSRI’s got so bad that angry scientists created the RIAT ACT to expose it. I only mention this because of an email I received a couple days ago from someone who actually works in the pharmaceutical industry, the name of which company was not revealed to me (the writer was not American).
You may think of yourself as a scientist warning the public about medical dangers, but the way you admittedly cherry-pick studies is appalling. Your points are made in incredibly biased fashion and your conclusions are unfair not only to the persons who could benefit from the medications you publicly criticize, but to manufacturers of these lifesaving drugs. Because of your propensity to show you don’t know what you are talking about, it would better serve the public if you stuck to your own area of training, cracking backs.
Wow; this person is right about one thing — I freely admit that I cherry-pick the research (HERE are hundreds of examples from my site). In fact, I even carry a “disclaimer” to that effect on my homepage. And while it’s true that I am using cherry-picked research to prove my points, there is a distinct difference between what I am doing on my website and what industry is doing.
While it certainly might change in the future, I currently don’t sell anything on my site — nothing. Furthermore, if you look at the link above, you’ll realize that I go out of my way to warn readers that they are looking at cherry-picked conclusions (I always provide the name of the study along with the name of the journal the study was published in so that people can go look it up themselves if they choose).
When industry cherry-picks their results they are not simply trying to make a point, they are trying to make a buck. They are frequently trying to deceive not only the general public, but at least a portion of the scientific community, as well as the watchdog organizations that are SUPPOSED TO PROTECT CITIZENS FROM THIS SORT OF THING. In other words, because industry’s sole purpose for being is to make money, THE RESEARCH THEY PUBLISH MUST BE TAKEN WITH A GRAIN OF SALT.
No matter what some of you have been told; if you are looking to take back your health without drugs and surgery, it may be more possible than you ever dreamed. For those who have gotten permission from your doctors, I’ve provided a GENERIC PROTOCOL for doing just that. It’s not the solution for every person, and it may not prevent you from needing PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS or requiring certain surgeries. But it’s almost certain to help your body function at a higher level of HOMEOSTASIS — something that must happen in order for real health to occur. If you found our post interesting, be sure to like, share, or follow on FACEBOOK.
