It has published papers on everything from ejaculation as a treatment for nasal congestion to why modern scientists are so dull, but the future of Medical Hypotheses is hanging in the balance after a host of complaints from high-profile researchers.It's good to see Dr. Charlton taking an aggressive stance for his journal (and career) and against the would-be guardians of what the educated public will be allowed to read.
The irreverent publication is the only Elsevier journal not to subject its submissions to peer review. Instead, its editor decides what to publish on the basis of how interesting or radical a paper is, and how well expressed the arguments are.
But its future is in doubt after editor-in-chief Bruce Charlton, professor of theoretical medicine at the University of Buckingham, published a paper from a well-known HIV/Aids denier.
The paper, "HIV-Aids hypothesis out of touch with South African Aids - A new perspective", was published online last July. It was written by Peter Duesberg, professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues.
It argues that there is "as yet no proof that HIV causes Aids" and says the claim that the virus has killed millions is "unconfirmed".
Prominent Aids researchers contacted Elsevier to object to the article and wrote to the US National Library of Medicine requesting that Medical Hypotheses be removed from the Medline citation database - an act that would exclude it from the mainstream scientific-communication network.
Elsevier's response was to retract both Professor Duesberg's paper and another article - "Aids denialism at the ministry of health", by Marco Ruggiero, professor of molecular biology at the University of Florence. [...]
Professor Charlton this week accused the researchers who complained of taking "behind-the-scenes action" to exclude dissenting views and bring the journal down.
"The coercive and anti-scientific reaction shows exactly why it was right that these papers were accepted to be published," he told Times Higher Education.
He said Elsevier had to decide whether to close the journal altogether or whether to leave it alone, adding that meddling with its unique status would be "unacceptable".
Steve Fuller, professor of sociology at the University of Warwick, said that while peer review worked for "normal science", it also had the power to suppress radical ideas.
"Medical Hypotheses has never hidden what it set out to do, namely to provide a forum for bold scientific ideas that challenge the status quo," he said.
I posted the following comment at the site:
After what we've learned about peer review from Climategate, one has to laugh at those who suggest that peer review is the Holy Grail of science and "a quality control mechanism". We've seen that peer review can function as peer exclusion and an attempt to ruin careers, and whatever the merits or demerits of the Aids skeptic case, that is exactly what is going on here. The notion that every single journal must toe an ideological line of peer review and furthermore that the Aids skeptic case is grounds for dismissal and blackballing is both absurd and soft totalitarian. That an article and a journal be listed on MedLine and readable on the internet appears to horrify those calling for action against Medical Hypotheses, who are openly against the dissemination of information and obviously fear dissent. If the anti-denialists are so sure of themselves, why do they call for the suppression of science?
When "they" use loaded terms like "denier" and try to censor information... I can only conclude that "they" know that they're wrong, and, since AIDs generates a lot of cash flow, they're probably crooks, too.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that modern peer reviewed "science" is more of a bureaucracy designed to protect the status quo than the instrument to increase knowledge.
ReplyDeleteIt is especially true for heavily regulated , monopolized and profitable domains such as medicine
Every regulation (even done with good intentions) in times turns into bureaucracy designed to protect and promote interests of their own
Regulatory capture.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that AIDS "denialism" has much merit scientifically (though I wouldn't be surprised considering what I'm about to say).
ReplyDeleteBut the more interesting, and practically important, question is: why should we care about AIDS so much?
AIDS is a gay/black/drug user/prostitute disease. Seriously, that's it. If you don't come into sexual contact with these people, AIDS might as well not exist. Why then it is so hyped?
OneSTDV writes:
ReplyDelete"Why then it is so hyped?"
See Auster's First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society: The worse any designated minority or alien group behaves in a liberal society, the bigger become the lies of Political Correctness in covering up for that group.
AIDS is a gay/black/drug user/prostitute disease - OneSTDV
ReplyDeleteApparently non-drug using prostitutes are considered low risk so you should probably scratch them from your list. Interestingly prostitutes are high risk for other STDs though.
Better keep that other blog warm, Dennis.
ReplyDeleteIt has published papers...
ReplyDeleteOh no! Not that!! Publishing papers?! What next?!!
One suspects, however, that they might allow a letter or paper refuting something published earlier, if someone cared to submit such a thing.
The claim has often been made that even questioning the HIV-AIDS link would result in people dying. But what are these critics worried about? That heroin addicts, while lounging in their shooting galleries and browsing Elsevier's latest scholarly journals, will suddenly decide "Hell, AIDS isn't real afterall. I'll go back to sharing needles!"? Do they think that crack whores read "Medical Hypothesis?
ReplyDeleteI deplore the censorship of Medical Hypotheses. OTOH, the maintenance of free speech requires some exercise of editorial discretion. One can't just print the palpably absurd and expect be taken seriously.
ReplyDeleteIf HIV doesn't cause AIDS, why has the death rate among infected persons dropped so precipitously since the introduction of anti-retroviral therapy? What about the hemophiliacs? How does Duesberg's hypothesis account for them?
Again, I deplore censorship, but there's not much to be done for someone who is determined to indulge his martyr complex.
I doubt that AIDS "denialism" has much merit scientifically (though I wouldn't be surprised considering what I'm about to say).
ReplyDeleteMe neither. Albeit the topic is imho much more complex than it is typically presented in media (with typical hysteria and "give em more money" conclusions)
My point was that in general fields like medicine are not really about making scientific progress and curing diseases , but more about directing the financial flows of research money, protecting the existing monopolists (big pharma) and their satellite bureaucracies (FDA,CDC etc)
That is not to say they absolutely generate no knew knowledge or anything useful -after all many of actual scientists involved are genuinely interested in science. Bureaucratic machine is just designed to funnel their efforts in "productive" pathways.
If HIV doesn't cause AIDS, why has the death rate among infected persons dropped so precipitously since the introduction of anti-retroviral therapy? -Anonymous
ReplyDeleteOne reason is that the early AZT therapy was administered in lethal doses. Patients sometimes died after about one year of treatment with AZT being taken in high doses every four hours. It is acknowledged now that these doses were way too high. Other drugs have been developed to counter the lethal side effects of AZT with patients now taking drug cocktails.
So early drug treatments were lethal, skewing the AIDS mortality statistics and making it appear like the more modern therapies are prolonging life spans.
Consider the fate of Paul Michael Glaser's (Starsky and Hutch) daughter:
Jake's sister Ariel was the first member of the family diagnosed in 1986—when the medical community knew little about AIDS. Members of the public recoiled with fear; Los Angeles preschools closed their doors to the Glasers' 4-year-old daughter; and classmates excluded her from birthday parties. The first effective treatment drug, AZT, won federal approval a year later only for adults. Harnessing the power of their Hollywood friends, the Glasers pleaded with drugmakers and won access to the drug for their daughter in 1988. But by then it was too late for Ariel; she died that year at the age of 7. Jake was just 3 at the time, and now remembers his sister mostly from pictures and family stories. "She was an angel," he says.
Life dealt Jake a gentler fate. He falls into a small subset of HIV-infected individuals who may remain symptom-free thanks to a mutation of the CCR5 gene that delays onset by restricting the virus' ability to enter white blood cells (see box). With the blessing of his physician, Dr. Richard Elion, Glaser stopped taking HIV medication altogether four years ago. Today he says he monitors his immune system with regular blood tests and remains on the lookout for any signs of illness. "It is a situation that requires a lot of vigilance," says Elion. "But if Jake plays his cards right, it's possible for him not to get sick."
Suppressing free enquiry in the interests of saving lives will always have bad consequences. What essentially is happening is that people are using an ‘ends justifies the means’ rationale. It’s wrong to suppress free speech but if lives will be saved by doing that then lives are more important then some fringe professor’s right to publish. That’s how the thinking goes but what about the above scenario? How will we ever correct these sorts of catastrophes if we are not allowed to question things? Imagine if in the late eighties you had a child who was infected by a blood transfusion and you were forced to administer high dose AZT – that child would have died an early death.