The Science of Tabloid Journalism

Iain Murray details the decline of scientific journals:

A prime example is the British Medical Journal (BMJ), which recently published a news story that suggested that Eli Lilly, the makers of Prozac, had failed to disclose links between the drug and violent behavior and suicide. The story alleges that certain documents detailing the alleged links — and provided to the BMJ by an anonymous source — had not been shared with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and had gone "missing" during the trial of man charged with murder in 1994. In a strongly worded response, Lilly pointed out that the documents had been in general circulation for years. In fact, the BMJ's one example of missing scientific data had been published by Lilly in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology in 1992! The BMJ refused to allow Lilly to review the documents prior to publishing the story; Lilly was only able to do so after obtaining copies from Democratic congressman Maurice Hinchey of New York, who had received copies from the BMJ. Moreover, the BMJ told Lilly that it would have an opportunity to discuss the issue further after the Christmas holidays — but then went ahead and issued its story on January 1; it also sent the documents to the FDA.

I predict that the scientific establishment is going to undergo a shakeup closely akin to that of the MSM soon. The fudging of climatological data associated with global warming and the overt politicization of popular magazines like Discover and Scientific American are the warning tremors of the quakes to come.