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A Matter of Health

Making sense of science

by Ruth SoRelle, MPH

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to help with a presentation on how to judge the news and medical value of a medical or science study. I agreed, and then the controversy of Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk and stem cells hit, shortly followed by a questions about a study in The Lancet and work by the same authors in The New England Journal of Medicine. In case you have missed the news, questions of fraud arose about both studies followed by admissions on the part of the researchers that there had, indeed, been misstatements (at least) involved.

Suddenly, I began to question my cheerful agreement. If three of the world's finest medical and scientific journals – Science, The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine – misjudged groundbreaking research, what makes me think I can do any better? And the truth is, I can't. One reason that much science writing revolves around the publication of articles or reports in the scientific media is the peer review process. That means other scientists have read and evaluated the study and feel it makes sense scientifically and clinically. Often, they have looked at more data than are presented in the written study and have, at times, asked that more experiments be done or that different analyses be considered.

However, they, like most of us, depend on the honesty and good will of the people involved. If data are fabricated, they can do little to combat that or even to ferret it out.

Perhaps, that is the job of a concerned, educated and knowledgeable press. The stem cell story first broke widely in the Korean media, when reporters became aware of concerns expressed by junior scientists about the work in Hwang's laboratory. As the story grew and widened, the university and Korean government took notice. In both cases, it was the supervising institutions that investigated the allegations and communicated with the journals and the public.

And maybe we've all learned a little caution.

One thing it does not do is make me question science or most of the scientists I know. They continue in their labs, quietly making the discoveries that, added together, may some day unravel much of what is mysterious about the human organism. They do it because it's a good question and the answer is going to benefit humanity. They work because good science often has to be its own reward, and that's why they went into it. If they benefit as well, then that's all to the good. However, such benefits cannot shape the questions – and most important, the answers. For the 99.9 percent of those toiling in laboratories across the nation, that's the way it works.

So I'll help my friend and give a little talk about sample sizes, methodology and statistics, and we'll all do the best we can to judge what is real and what is not – understanding that we and science will not always be perfect.

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