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COVID-19 Wuhan lab escape theory gets a second look
Initially dismissed as conspiracy theory, the possibility that the COVID-19 is the consequence of a Chinese laboratory accident is suddenly getting a second look,...
Retraction of study on China's controversial anal-swab COVID-19 test
An article claiming that anal swabs can be used to detect SARS-CoV-2 in patients cured of COVID-19 has been retracted after the journal found...
Brain imaging study paused over LGBTQ+ advocates' concerns
Criticism from LGBTQ+ organisations has put a halt, at least temporarily, to a US National Institute of Health-backed imaging study amid “grave concerns” about what...
Curb chronic inflammation to reduce risk of chronic disease mortality
The group of international experts, which also includes scientists from the National Institutes of Health, Stanford University, Harvard Medical School, Columbia University Medical Centre...
South Africa shines in global overview of HIV/Aids research excellence
A global analysis of four years of HIV/Aids research identifies the US as research leader in the field, followed by the UK and South...
Chinese organ donation statistics may have been falsified
The Chinese government may have been systematically falsifying its organ donation numbers, raising renewed concerns over the use of executed prisoners and other forced...
UK scientists damn EU clinical trials directive for 'killing academic research'
A UK report has criticised the EU’s Clinical Trial Directive saying it has “killed academic research” by making trials so “horrendously expensive” that only the largest pharmaceutical...
African resistance to genetically modified mosquitoes
A not-for-profit research group has developed a mosquito that can kill off its own species by spreading a faulty gene. In Burkina Faso, the...
Turkish academic jailed over study linking toxic pollution and cancer
A Turkish food safety engineer has been jailed after releasing to a newspaper details of a study that he had done for the health...
Study investigates 'spin' in psychology and psychiatry journals
More than half of papers in published over five years in six leading psychiatry and psychology journals — including JAMA Psychiatry, the American Journal of...
US crackdown on foetal tissue use shuts some research
The Trump crackdown on foetal tissue research, with new hurdles for government-funded scientists around the country who call the special cells vital for fighting...
NHS assesses studies on mortality risk of ultra-processed foods
Two recent widely-publicised international studies, which found people who ate the most ‘ultra-processed’ food were more likely to have a heart attack or stroke,...
Top medical journals are failing — and both they and authors are full of excuses
It’s a well-known problem with clinical trials: Researchers start out saying they will look for a particular outcome – heart attacks, for example –...
Side-effects of health interventions not properly reported in 35% of studies
The potential side-effects of health interventions — either a drug reaction or an effect of a procedure, such as surgery — were not fully...
Japanese stem cell research 'dangerous and unwise'
There is real hope for treating spinal cord injury with stem cell-based therapies in the future. However, writes Paul Knoepfler on the Knoepfler Lab...
Leading research centre bars execs from serving on corporate boards
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, one of the world’s leading research institutions, has announced that it would bar its top executives from serving on...
Leading cancer expert resigns as journal editor after disclosure issues
Dr José Baselga, the former chief medical officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, resigned under pressure as one of the editors-in-chief of the...
UCT professor warns about Africa's science brain drain
Not only are many science graduates in Africa unemployed but the situation is getting worse, fuelling a brain drain to Europe, the UK and North America, warned...
Mischievous responders misleading LGBQ researchers
Many research studies have reported on the elevated health risk and deviance of youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning (LGBQ). But...
Doubts and outrage over genetically edited babies claims
Significant doubts have been expressed, as well as international outrage, over unverified claims from a Chinese scientist that he has helped make the world's...
Cochrane Collaboration in turmoil over expulsion of board member
A the expulsion of a board member of the Cochrane Collaboration, one of medicine's most respected bodies for its reviews of clinical research, has...
Top breast cancer researcher failed to disclose pharma payments
One of the world’s top breast cancer doctors failed to disclose millions of dollars in payments from drug and health care companies in recent...
Protecting pregnant women in clinical trials is a delicate balancing act
Treatment decisions during pregnancy are a balancing act that should be informed by available data and expert input, notes an article in The New...
Financial disclosure lacking in publication of clinical trials
A substantial proportion of pharmaceutical industry payments to authors of oncology clinical trials published in major scientific journals are not disclosed, research shows. The...
Unpaywall transforms research as academic publishers start to crack
Unpaywall is a free service locates open-access articles and presents paywalled papers that have been legally archived and are freely available on other websites to...
NIH shuts down controversial study funded by alcohol companies
The US National Institutes of Health will shut down a controversial industry-funded study of moderate drinking and heart disease after a task force found...
Small MRI sample size studies lack sufficient statistical power
Small sample sizes in studies using functional MRI to investigate brain connectivity and function are common in neuroscience, despite years of warnings that such...
Human drug trials compromised by poor animal research reporting
Poor animal study design and reporting thwarts the ethical review of proposed human drug trials, according to a study led by researchers at Hannover...
Duke University faces new NIH requirements after research misconduct
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently imposed unusual new requirements on researchers based at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who receive...
NHS scepticism over study claiming heart benefits of fasting diet
A University of Surrey study that compares the 5:2 fasting diet with a daily calorie restriction diet and concludes that fasting could have a...
Researchers challenge claims that sugar industry paid scientists to shift blame
In recent years, high-profile claims in the academic literature and popular press have alleged that the sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to...
Warnings on side effects of epilepsy drug came 40 years too late
Warnings to young women who might become pregnant that the epilepsy drug sodium valproate could cause birth defects and developmental problems in their babies...
No adverse effects from light drinking in pregnancy but abstention still advised
A research review suggests that consuming even small amounts of alcohol in pregnancy may be linked with higher chances of having a small baby...
Top UK university used overseas patients as research guinea pigs
Experimental implants that should only have been used in laboratory or animal tests were sent abroad and used on patients who were treated like...
BHIVA challenges recommendation on ART for HIV+ pregnant women
The British HIV Association (BHIVA) has taken issue with a BMJ article regarding the PROMISE trial that led to a recommendation on the use...
Fury from LGBT rights groups over facial recognition study
A facial recognition experiment that claims to be able to distinguish between gay and heterosexual people has sparked a row between its creators and...
Study finds 'spin' in 26% of research – rising in non-randomised trials
Researchers from the University of Sydney's multidisciplinary Charles Perkins Centre and faculty of pharmacy reviewed 35 published academic studies of so-called “spin” in biomedical...
The Lancet under fire over editorial response to misconduct claims
The Lancet journal has been criticised in an open letter over its statement that the World Health Organisation's judgment of misconduct regarding the Oxford...
Tips for positive outcomes when submitting manuscripts
17Reviewer comments on a scientific manuscript may seem critical and personal to authors, but they are generally well thought out and meant to enhance...
Too many experimental drugs, too may trials, too few patients
With the arrival of two revolutionary treatment strategies, immunotherapy and personalised medicine, cancer researchers have found new hope – and a problem that is...