Editor—With reference to Godlee's article on editorial misconduct I would like to have seen a commitment to apply the same standards of rigour to press releases and media commentary that announce the published research.1 Don't blame hype all on the press. Journals have been known to feed the frenzy by:
Allowing generalisations to be made from narrow and specific results
Giving undue prominence to a single “contrarian” result, when many others suggest the opposite
Allowing purely theoretical constructs to be interpreted as reality and empirically based
Allowing evidence free assertions about long term promise of things, such as cures for cancer
Interpreting statistical insignificance as evidence of no effect rather than insufficient power or a demand for excessive though arbitrary confidence thresholds.
And, I'm sure there are more.
Competing interests: None declared.
References
- 1.Godlee F. Dealing with editorial misconduct. BMJ 2004;329: 1301-2. (4 December.) [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]