Bad science, new chapters

Jordi Varela
Editor

In July of last year I commented on a work by Paul Glasziou and Iain Chalmers that concluded that taking into account methodological shortcomings, unpublished studies and poorly explained ones, the waste of biomedical research could be of the order of 85%. According to these authors, only 15% of what is investigated reaches the clinic in conditions of quality and appropriate communication. A little over a year later, other sources insist that biomedical research, in general terms, does not show signs of recovery and, to make it understandable, I will follow the same scheme that I used in the post I have quoted.

It’s estimated that the waste in biomedical research reaches 85%

In 2014, following concerns over the poor quality of biomedical research, The Lancet published a series of 5 articles analysing the scope of the problem and proposing solutions and as a result of this Reward Alliance was born, a platform that aims to defend the value of the research, from which I have extracted the scandalous figure of 85% and, according to Paul Glasziou and Iain Chalmers, two of the leaders of the movement, the volume of money squandered by biomedical research could reach 170 billion dollars annually, an amount higher than Hungary's gross domestic product. The two authors, who already predicted this figure in 2009, argue that this amount comes from an accumulation of up to three times 50%.

Treatments, tested

The other day, Xavier Bonfill and Iain Chalmers presented the Catalan edition of the book Testing Treatments. Better Research for Better Healthcare. This caught my attention and after 12 years of delay, I was motivated to read the work. It’s necessary to clarify that in 2006, the year of its first edition; I was a hospital CEO and had neither the head nor the time for this. Maybe one day we will have to talk about what the executives read. Be that as it may, this text is considered one of those that have laid the foundations of modern clinical management, which concentrates its focus on effectiveness, a goal as coveted as it is difficult (1).

Journalist Nick Ross, in the presentation of the first edition of the book, wrote: "This book is good for health; it shines light on the mysteries of how decisions about life and death are made. It goes to show how these criteria are generally lacking and it challenges doctors from around the world to change their ways.” On the other hand, Ben Goldacre, in the prologue of the second edition (2011), provides a really interesting quote: "The true purpose of the scientific method is to make sure that nature doesn’t mislead us into thinking that we know something that we don’t really know".