By Lynne Peeples / Source: HuffPost

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Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s retracted study on vaccines and autism is just one example of fraudulent or deceptive science that has had lasting public health consequences. | Lynne Peeples

The current outbreak of measles, on pace to become the largest since the disease was declared eliminated in the U.S. more than a decade ago, was made possible in large part by a single black mark in the medical research literature — a discredited 1998 study from Dr. Andrew Wakefield that purported to link the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism.

The Lancet, the journal in which Wakefield’s study appeared, pulled the study after investigations by a British journalist and a medical panel uncovered cherry-picked data and an array of financial conflicts of interest, among other trappings of fraudulent science. Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist, had gone as far as to pay children at his son’s birthday party to have their blood drawn for the research. He had also collected funds for his work from personal injury lawyers who represented parents seeking to sue vaccine makers.

Despite the journal’s retraction and Wakefield being stripped of his medical license in the U.K., the study still succeeded in generating fear and doubt about vaccines. The public health repercussions are still being felt today, as evidenced by the ongoing measles outbreak, which has affected more than 121 people, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A separate outbreak of mumps, another illness protected against by the MMR vaccine, is also emerging in Idaho and Washington state.

Wakefield isn’t the only scientist to leave a legacy of discredited work and serious health threats — although his case may be the most famous and the least ambiguous. The results of fabricated data and other forms of research misconduct often make their way into our policy and public discourse before they are identified and addressed within the scientific community. An analysis published this week in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine found that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration commonly identifies problematic research — from the fraudulent to the mistaken — during its systematic reviews of relevant studies, but rarely reports its findings to the publications in which the studies appeared. Simple sloppiness can result in damaging misinformation and misinterpretations, as can scientists exaggerating their findings in the hopes of gaining publicity or securing future funding. Then, too, there are mainstream journalists who may over- or under-emphasize certain aspects of new research, or who may not fully understand the science they’re writing about.

Combine all of that with a population whose general grasp of science appears to be middling at best, and you have a recipe for an echo chamber of misinformation. “We don’t have a particularly scientifically astute society,” said Dr. Margaret Moon, a pediatrician and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University. “We need to do a better job helping people understand good versus bad data.”

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The Internet seldom helps the situation. Type “vaccine autism” into Google, and you’d think the jury was still out on the MMR vaccine. The first listed link, a paid advertisement, reads: “Vaccines cause autism.” Other links concern an ongoing “controversy.” For the record: Among scientists, there is no controversy. Vaccines are safe.

The case of the MMR vaccine and infectious disease is particularly clear-cut. But other questionable studies and findings have caused more insidious forms of harm that reveal how vulnerable we are to scientific dishonesty.

Take, for example, a widely covered review paper out of Stanford University that suggested organic foods don’t provide greater nutritional value, or pose fewer health risks, than their conventional counterparts. That research, as The Huffington Post reported after its publication in 2012, was quickly questioned by experts in the field. Critics noted that some nutrients found in previous research to be more plentiful in organics were missing altogether from the Stanford findings. A paper like this — that is, a review of existing scientific literature — can be especially problematic, since the way the various studies are chosen, divvied up and combined can significantly alter any conclusions.

The Stanford study also reported that organic produce had a 30 percent lower risk of pesticide contamination compared to conventional fruits and vegetables. Not included in the publicly available abstract or press release, however, was the fact that pesticide residues were found in 7 percent of organics and 38 percent of conventional foods. In relative terms, that’s a more impressive 81 percent difference. Critics also alleged that the Stanford authors downplayed findings of higher levels of omega-3’s in organic products, as well as lower levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria as compared to conventional foods.

Though academic dishonesty is relatively rare, there can be pressure on scientists and institutions to punch up findings in a bid for publicity.

“I think it’s important that researchers don’t overstate what they find,” said Cynthia Curl, an environmental health scientist at Boise State University. She said she’d like researchers to “try to keep conclusions they make about their research within the confines of what they actually found.”

“For consumers, it is hard to navigate,” she said.

Today, a Google search for “organic food health” may also be misleading, since the Stanford study’s press release appears near the top of the search results. “Little evidence of health benefits from organic foods,” it reads. Below is a quote from the release: “There isn’t much difference between organic and conventional foods, if you’re an adult and making a decision based solely on your health.”

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