Remember the days when you felt like you knew what information to trust? Now, in an age when disinformation runs rampant, many people feel they don’t know where to turn. Is the information we consume true, false, or worse yet, purposely false?
Disinformation is different than misinformation. Misinformation is a mistake (a good way to remember that is the “mis” in misinformation is like the “mis” in mistake). Disinforma- tion, on the other hand, is false or misleading information shared with the intention of manipulation or to mislead, and it’s being spread with reckless abandon. But we can at least trust medical studies from our nation’s finest research institutions, right?
Um, yes. But note the “um.” I offer apprehension because after recent news of unfor- givable publication problems, perhaps we need more reservation than we used to have.
According to a recent New York Times article titled, “More Studies by Columbia Cancer Researchers Are Retracted,” Columbia studies were pulled due to copied data. These cases indicate that some scientific publishers are slow to address serious errors such as data discrepancies and reuse of photos.
“Scientists in a prominent cancer lab at Columbia University have now had four studies retracted and a stern note added to a fifth accusing it of ‘severe abuse of the scientific publishing system,” the article reads.
In addition, the New York Times reported that “a medical journal in 2022 had quietly taken down a stomach cancer study by the researchers after an internal inquiry by the journal found ethics violations. Despite that study’s removal, the researchers—Dr. Sam Yoon, chief of a cancer surgery division at Columbia University’s medical center, and Changhwan Yoon, a more junior biologist there—continued publishing studies with suspicious data. Since 2008, the two scientists have collaborated with other researchers on 26 articles that have been publicly flagged for misrepresenting experiments’ results.”
Since then, medical journals pulled three other studies that described novel approaches for treating cancers of the stomach, head and neck. The studies had been cited dozens of times.
“For every one paper that is retracted, there are probably 10 that should be,” said Dr. Ivan Oransky, cofounder of Retraction Watch, which keeps a database of 47,000-plus retracted studies.
Disconcerting, to say the least. We should trust most information from researchers and from universities, but clearly, we shouldn’t trust it all. We can forgive mistakes, because we all make them. But intentionally misleading? No. This research situation is gross, and that’s not disinformation.
