{"id":407,"date":"2019-08-08T16:39:24","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T16:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/?p=407"},"modified":"2019-08-10T04:31:52","modified_gmt":"2019-08-10T04:31:52","slug":"the-tarnished-gold-standard-of-peer-reviewed-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/08\/the-tarnished-gold-standard-of-peer-reviewed-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffThe tarnished \u2018gold standard\u2019 of peer-reviewed studies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWhy we shouldn\u2019t take peer review as the \u2018gold standard,\u2019\u201d (1) which appeared in the Washington Post<\/em> on August 1st<\/sup>, should be read by everyone who values their health and well-being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors, Paul Thacker and Jon Tennant, bring to light the\nfact that shoddy work often makes it past peer\nreviewers while excellent research gets shot down. They explain how peer\nreviewers \u201coften fail to detect bad research, conflicts of interest and\ncorporate ghostwriting,\u201d and that the practice is \u201cneither golden nor\nstandardized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Truth in Labeling Campaign we have\nspent roughly 30 years monitoring badly flawed research published by\nglutamate-industry agents, and are very familiar with a wide variety of insidious\njournal\/industry cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years the International\nGlutamate Technical Committee (IGTC) was the primary front organization responsible\nfor production and publication of research for Ajinomoto (principal producer of\nMSG in the US). During that time the IGTC amassed a number of double-blind\nstudies concluding — but not demonstrating — that MSG is safe. The fact that\nthese studies were often done at generally respected universities or medical\nschools, all of which required that the research be approved by medical\nresearch review committees, had, and still has, public relations\nvalue. Subsequently, those studies were published in peer reviewed journals — accepted\nby editors who, themselves, often had ties to the food and\/or drug industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the \u201cpeers\u201d who review the\nwork of glutamate-industry representatives are themselves glutamate-industry\nrepresentatives (or very close friends), that work is very likely to be\npublished. Also consider the fact that the journals may have close ties to\nindustry.  For example, the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology<\/em>\naccepts advertising, and The American Journal\nof Clinical Nutrition,<\/em> acknowledges the generous support of members of the food and\/or\ndrug industries. Both of those journals publish glutamate-industry sponsored\nstudies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When professional peer\nreview journals hesitated to take articles from glutamate industry researchers\nbecause the flaws in their badly designed studies \u2013 such as lacing their\nplacebos with excitotoxic aspartic acid (in aspartame) — had been pointed out\nto journal editors, those researchers held seminars and\/or presented their\npapers at professional meetings with abstracts printed in appropriate journals.\nStudies reported in abstract form are not peer reviewed, and letters to the\neditor criticizing abstracts are not generally published. In the 1990s, the\nprincipal forum for such papers was the American\nAcademy of Asthma, Allergy, and Immunology<\/em>. In addition, there were\njournals that, by policy, do not accept critical letters. Food Additives and Contaminants<\/em> is one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not to be overlooked is\nsuppression of information. When contradictory or embarrassing information has\nbeen published, those in positions of power block dissemination of that information.\nWhen critiques of deceptive and misleading research reports are offered for\npublication, those in positions of power refuse to publish them. When, prior to\npublication, criticism of deceptive and misleading research reports are\nanticipated, researchers publish their questionable research in journals that\ndo not accept comment following publication, present their findings orally at\nindustry-sponsored or professional meetings, or publish their findings in\nabstract form only. Neither oral presentations nor published abstracts are\nsubject to peer review or to published criticism. In no case is it immediately\nobvious that the data or criticism of that data have been suppressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References and additional information can be found in The toxicity\/safety of processed free glutamic acid (MSG): a study in suppression of information<\/a>, by A. Samuels.  Account Res.<\/em>1999;6:259-310.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have questions or comments, we\u2019d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we\u2019ll put them up on <\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on <\/em>Twitter @truthlabeling<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference<\/strong>
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  1. https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/outlook\/why-we-shouldnt-take-peer-review-as-the-gold-standard\/2019\/08\/01\/fd90749a-b229-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html<\/a> <\/li><\/ol>\n
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    \u201cWhy we shouldn\u2019t take peer review as the \u2018gold standard,\u2019\u201d (1) which appeared in the Washington Post on August 1st, should be read by everyone who values their health and well-being. The authors, Paul Thacker and Jon Tennant, bring to light the fact that shoddy work often makes it past peer reviewers while excellent research … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “\ufeffThe tarnished \u2018gold standard\u2019 of peer-reviewed studies”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[116,4,114,115,24,37,113],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-goldstandard","tag-msg","tag-msgpropanganda","tag-peerreview","tag-truthinlabelingcampaign","tag-umami","tag-washingtonpost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions\/415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/truthinlabeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}