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When Scientists Lie
People fib all the time—about affairs, about taxable income, about whether their partner looks fat. But these falsehoods don’t hurt your health.
Bogus medical data, on the other hand, can and does. In the most recent case, Dipak Das, a researcher at the University of Connecticut, made up data about the cardiovascular benefits of drinking red wine. No one is saying to cut the vino yet, but the story brings back memories of other famous medical frauds (see below) and the problems they cause.
“We tend to trust scientists,” says Robert Klitzman, M.D., a professor of clinical psychiatry who directs the master’s of bioethics program at Columbia University. “As a result, a few bad apples can be faking things. We only hope they’re caught.”
Read more at http://news.menshealth.com/when-scientists-lie/2012/01/20/
