Rigor Mortis : How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions

An essential book to understanding whether the new miracle cure is good science or simply too good to be true American taxpayers spend $30 billion annually funding biomedical research, but over half of these studies can't be replicated due to poor experimental design, improper methods, and sloppy statistics. Bad science doesn't just hold back medical progress, it can sign the equivalent of a death sentence for terminal patients. In Rigor Mortis , Richard Harris explores these urgent issues with vivid anecdotes, personal stories, and interviews with the top biomedical researchers. We need to fix our dysfunctional biomedical system — before it's too late. Biomedical Science--the Research That Underlies Our Treatments And Cures--is In Deep Crisis. Every Year, American Taxpayers Spend More Than $30 Billion Funding It. About Half Of That Work, By Some Estimates, Is Wrong. As Award-winning Science Journalist Richard Harris Reveals In Rigor Mortis, This Is Not Simply The Result Of Trial And Error, Which Is An Essential Part Of The Scientific Process. The Economic Imperative For Researchers To Get And Keep Jobs And Funding Encourages Dubious Behavior, From Poor Experimental Design To Sloppy Statistics And Shoddy Analysis. Add To That A Bunch Of Mislabeled Cell Lines And Mishandled Ingredients, And What Seems Like A Potential Cure Becomes An Unreliable Mess. Some 900 Breast-cancer Studies Were Conducted With Cells That Weren't Breast-cancer Cells At All, New Treatments For Als Developed In Rodent Models Failed When Retested Properly In Mice, And Only 1.2 Percent Of Early Papers In Genomics Stand The Test Of Time. These Problems Aren't The Exception. They Are Commonplace. This Crisis Of Reproducibility--when Studies Done In One Lab Fail When Another Tries To Reproduce Their Results--isn't Just Holding Back Scientific Progress--it's A Devastating Blow For Patients Everywhere Who Are Hoping That Medical Science Will Give Them Longer, Healthier Lives. Rigor Mortis Explores These Urgent Issues Through Vivid Anecdotes, Personal Stories, And Interviews With The Nation's Top Biomedical Researchers, Some Of Whom Are Now Struggling To Set Things Right. An Unsparing Investigation That Lays Bare The Dysfunctions In Our Research System, This Book Represents The First Step Toward Fixing It.--jacket. Begley's Bombshell -- It's Hard Even On The Good Days -- A Bucket Of Cold Water -- Misled By Mice -- Trusting The Untrustworthy -- Jumping To Conclusions -- Show Your Work -- A Broken Culture -- The Challenge Of Precision Medicine -- Inventing A Discipline. Richard Harris. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 239-264) And Index. "American taxpayers spend $30 billion annually funding biomedical research. By some estimates, half of the results from these studies can't be replicated elsewhere-the science is simply wrong. Often, research institutes and academia emphasize publishing results over getting the right answers, incentivizing poor experimental design, improper methods, and sloppy statistics. Bad science doesn't just hold back medical progress, it can sign the equivalent of a death sentence. How are those with breast cancer helped when the cell on which 900 papers are based turns out not to be a breast cancer cell at all? How effective could a new treatment for ALS be when it failed to cure even the mice it was initially tested on? In Rigor Mortis, award-winning science journalist Richard F. Harris reveals these urgent issues with vivid anecdotes, personal stories, and interviews with the nation's top biomedical researchers. We need to fix our dysfunctional biomedical system-now"-- Provided by publisher An award-winning science journalist pulls the alarm on the dysfunction plaguing scientific research-with lethal consequences for us all.