Gold Standard Science scorecard
Facts, data, and proof are lacking. Opinions, conjecture, and conflicts of interest abound.
I mention Gold Standard Science quite often in this newsletter. Not because I like the term. Frankly, I find it ludicrous. But I keep addressing it because it is repeated so often by federal health agency leaders and spokespersons that it demands further scrutiny.
Here’s what the director of the National Institutes of Health wrote when the “Gold Standard Science Implementation Plan” was announced.
The plan posted this graphic as a summary of the “Tenets of Gold Standard Science.”
There have been times in recent months when I thought this was a list of what the federal health agencies were vowing NOT to do. But Bhattacharya insists that “It is embedded in everything we do.” Well, let’s start to keep score. The following will surely be an incomplete list. Many federal health agency actions and statements overlap several categories of the “tenets” listed above.
Reproducible?
(The bulleted examples all come from the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report, “Trump Administration Attacks on Scientific Integrity.”)
Transparent?
How transparent was HHS Secretary Kennedy when he fired the CDC director?
How transparent was FDA Commissioner Makary when he has carefully selected only certain voices on “expert panels” that seem to have taken the place of FDA advisory groups?
Were the following actions examples of transparency?
Communicative of Error and Uncertainty?
Released an error-filled report on childhood chronic disease. Within days public reporting had identified citations in the report to studies that did not appear to exist. In response to the reporting, HHS updated at least 18 citations, several of which contained studies whose authors say the report had misinterpreted.
Jessica Steier, DrPH, and colleagues wrote, “Scientific Integrity Under Fire: How Evidence Was Misrepresented in HHS’s COVID Vaccine Policy Reversal: An analysis of cherry-picked studies, flawed citations, and bypassed scientific processes in a controversial health policy decision.”
See this PhD scientist’s takedown of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary’s - choose one: lie, confusion, ineptitude - when he claimed a causal relationship existed between autism and acetaminophen use. Click here or on the image to see the video.
Collaborative and interdisciplinary?
Censored NIH’s top researcher of ultra-processed foods. Kevin Hall, who had led research on links between diet and chronic disease, resigned after NIH leadership made him feel he could no longer “freely conduct unbiased science.” In a subsequent interview, Hall said the Administration attempted to suppress findings of a study he had conducted.
Skeptical of its findings & assumptions
Last week, continuing his stubborn, non-evidence-based insistence that acetaminophen causes autism, Kennedy said, “We’re doing the studies to make the proof.” Mr. Kennedy, that is not the way science has ever, or should ever, be done. One does not go into a study with a pre-conceived answer and then do the “study” in such a way that you can prove it. Your non-science background is revealed - in that quote - for all to see and should be the quote on your bio page. Because it tells everything about how you’re leading this agency into the abyss.
He promised to find the cause of autism by September (now past) and only came up with blaming acetaminophen. Other unproven RFK Jr. assumptions appear in this graphic:
Structured for falsifiability of hypotheses?
Proposed changing landmark scientific finding about climate change. EPA announced its intent to “rescind” the endangerment finding, a scientific determination that greenhouse gases posed a threat to human health. In doing so, the Trump Administration cited a report from five scientists, some of whom it had recently hired, with a record of casting doubt on the thoroughly established connection between fossil fuels and climate change.
Subject to unbiased peer review?
Blocked all CDC researchers from publishing in any journal. Forcing staff to retract work they had previously submitted to any journal, in order to ensure that “forbidden terms” did not appear.
Used the DOJ to intimidate medical journals. On April 14, Ed Martin, the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, sent a letter to the medical journal CHEST, suggesting that it and other medical journals had become
“partisans” in scientific debates, and asking whether medical publishers were “adjusting their method of acceptance of competing viewpoints.”
Later that week, Martin sent letters to at least two additional medical
journals. And the following week, Martin sent a similar letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, against which Kennedy, said he would pursue
racketeering charges during his presidential campaign.
The Department of Veterans Affairs assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs ordered department scientists not to publish in medical journals before clearing their work with the Trump Administration appointees, just hours after two VA pulmonologists published an article the New England Journal of Medicine warning about the impact of funding cuts on the treatment of veterans.
Without conflicts of interest?
Conflicts of interest can be financial and/or intellectual. Links to my past articles on this topic below:
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about the hypocritical “tenets of Gold Standard Science” that federal health folks brag about. Nor will it be the last. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” the idiom goes. Try to fool me over and over with almost every action you take...well, my momma didn’t raise no fool.
As I wrote back in August:
Facts, data, and proof are lacking. Opinions, conjecture and conspiracy theories abound. If this is the “Gold Standard Science” touted by an Executive Order to restore trust to American health policy, it’s doing just the opposite. Trust is looking more battered, broken and rusty by the day.
And on one key health policy issue, 3 out of 4 of those in a recent KFF Health Tracking Poll oppose the Administration’s policy. Even a majority of Republicans.
Note: Last month STAT News published its own report card of sorts on “one year into the life of MAHA” - RFK Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again Movement. It’s not pretty.
Thanks for the very important work you do Gary.
Excellent work yet again, Gary.
I'm glad you posted those bullet points from the NIH, because I hate them. Their wording is a HUGE contributor to the trust problem - they don't speak to the audience that needs to learn the missing lessons! Nerdy wording like "falsifiability of hypotheses" is guaranteed not to build confidence among people who have practical skills but don't get the abstract stuff.
It is our responsibility as communicators to figure out how to MAKE SENSE to people. If we just say "Trust the scientists," and then they read about corruption and overturned studies, we've lost them. We need to convey lessons in a way that people can understand based on their own practical experience.
Toward that end, I just had a long conversation with my favorite messaging coach, ChatGPT. We made good progress but I'm not ready to push it out yet.
Maybe this can become a series, where we ruthlessly apply our own methods to the question of whether we've said each point clearly! I'd be happy to work with you on it.