Elsevier’s ‘Confidence in Research’ Project: Trust Deficit

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From Publishing Perspectives:

Even as many in the world’s public-health community keep ratcheting up the alarm about the high transmissibility of the BA.5 variant of the coronavirus COVID-19, the problems of a mistrust in science are everywhere: Bare, unmasked faces fill crowded indoor settings; numbers on vaccinations and booster shots lag behind where they should be; lame excuses about “COVID fatigue” are never far behind if you point out to someone that the pandemic isn’t over.

. . . .

The basis for mistrust may go much farther than issues of diversity in the research ranks, too. During pandemic-era assaults on science by political personalities–and widespread disinformation on social-media channels–one of the virus’ major revelations has been just how science-averse many people are, with varying degrees of intensity from one international book market to the next. From Novak Djokovic’s deportation from Australia to the current reticence of many parents to allow young children to be vaccinated, even with full official approval, the

In “Why We Must Rebuild Trust in Science” at Pew Research in February, Sudlip Parikh wrote, “The COVID-19 pandemic will not be the last time that science will be essential to society’s triumph over existential threats. Addressing future public health concerns, such as climate change, food and water insecurity, and other challenges—some of which are yet to emerge—will require the long-term integration of science into policymaking in ways that have only been temporary in the past.”

Trust, Parikh write, is “absolutely critical to the success of our mission to improve the human condition.” And on Monday (July 11), the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a new paper from three researchers at Ohio State examining “Why Are People Anti-Science, and What Can We Do About It?”

. . . .

This is the real debate behind the Amsterdam-based Elsevier’s “Confidence in Research” program, announced today (July 13) by the publisher, a collaboration with the UK’s Economist Impact.  What the project’s work does is look at the internal element of this debate–the way researchers themselves see the field, their work in it, and  the deficiencies that might limit trust.

Elsevier Research’s announcement today says that the project is to be focused on two questions:

  • What should change before the next crisis, the next pandemic? How should our experience with COVID inform future communications around science?
  • How has the pandemic affected the academic research community?

. . . .

In a prepared statement, Anne Kitson, senior vice-president and managing director of Cell Press and The Lancet, is quoted, saying, “This work builds on our long-standing collaboration with Elsevier to support initiatives that improve understanding of research quality and accessible findings.

“If researchers have questions about the reliability of research on which to build, then these are also questions for the public and how we more broadly place confidence in findings.

“We are looking to this initiative to provide more of an evidence base on which initiatives can be developed and benchmarked.”

Link to the rest at Publishing Perspectives

From The American Bar Association:

There is always a political element to public health decisions or, more broadly, public policy decisions that draw on science. Such decisions involve not only scientific data but also debates about how to allocate resources—and resources are always limited—and how to balance different values. But real problems arise when the decisions are not based on a shared factual foundation, or when the science used to describe and assess the situation is politicized. Such politicization of the science around vaccines, for example, can lead to decisions that directly increase the rates and harms of diseases, with potentially deadly consequences.

The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States was politicized relatively early, which made responding to the pandemic challenging. Politicization was not, of course, the only issue. The tricky nature of the infection, which can be transmitted before or without symptoms, public health messaging failures or errors, and previous underfunding of public health infrastructure all contributed to the United States’ failed response—resulting in the United States having a disproportionately high rate of both COVID-19 cases and deaths compared to other countries. But politicization had a role. For example, there is evidence that the Trump administration, concerned about the political impacts of the pandemic, put pressure on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to change not only the guidance it provided but also the scientific reports used by public health officials and other policymakers to make decisions. There is, again, an appropriate role for politics in making decisions in a pandemic situation. But manipulating the scientific evidence on which decisions are made can undermine the ability of politicians of all orientations to make decisions that match values.

. . . .

Traditionally, vaccines have not been a partisan issue. In the 1960s and 1970s, all states—with a variety of political views—adopted school immunization requirements for a variety of diseases. In the early 2000s, both left-leaning California and right-leaning Texas offered very easy-to-get exemptions from those school mandates. At the other extreme, left-leaning New York used a relatively hard-to-get religious exemption, and West Virginia never offered a non-medical exemption, while Mississippi’s religious exemption was struck down by its Supreme Court in 1979 and never revived. 

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill to protect the vaccine supply by creating a no-fault program that provided limited liability protections to vaccine manufacturers—though with reservations. The bill was supported by other members of his administration (though opposed by civil servants in the Department of Justice) after being drafted by a Democrat chair of a congressional committee.

. . . .

In the past few years, struggles around vaccine mandates have become politicized. In many states—including Maine, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and New York—votes on laws regarding school vaccine mandates were along party lines. School vaccine mandates are not just about science; they involve a discussion of values and address views about the balance of parental rights with public health. But the discussion in legislatures often drew on conflicting views of the science. More often than not, opponents of bills aiming to change mandates (not all from one party) echoed or repeated misleading claims made by the anti-vaccine movement. For example, speaking about a bill that would have required doctors to give parents seeking to vaccinate the CDC’s excipient list, Republican Senator Bob Hall from Texas expressed inaccurate statements about vaccines ingredients, for example alleging vaccines contain “fetal parts” and expressing concerns about aluminum in vaccines. The first comment refers, inaccurately, to the fact that a small number of vaccines use viruses grown on cells descended—at long remove—from fetal cells deriving from abortions performed in the 1960s. The remoteness convinces even the most of pro-life commenters that using these vaccines to prevent harm is morally permissible and does not create complicity with abortions. But that is not how anti-vaccine groups present it, including to supporting legislators. As to aluminum, many vaccines contain tiny amounts of aluminum salts to help the vaccine work better—but extensive data supports the experts’ consensus that these tiny amounts of aluminum salts, far smaller than what we are exposed to through food, are not a danger.

In these cases, it is hard not to see the position as the result of misinformation legislators were provided by the anti-vaccine movement rather than a value choice. School mandates work; they reduce rates of outbreaks in the state. When legislators are led to weaken them because of anti-vaccine claims, they may be inadvertently causing direct harm to their constituents—without intending to.

Link to the rest at The American Bar Association

PG notes that politicized science is virtually always a threat to the quality of scientific research and the recommendations that politically-appointed professionals and politicians provide with respect to preventative activities or treatments are sometimes difficult to isolate from the influence of powerful non-scientific interests.

8 thoughts on “Elsevier’s ‘Confidence in Research’ Project: Trust Deficit”

  1. As a refugee from high-falutin’ science research (and continued-to-this-day user of current research publications), my left eyebrow rose 0.85 ±0.03cm when I saw that the two sponsors of the “projects” in the respective OPs were:

    Elsevier, known within the research-science community for its extortionate prices for its vanity-press-modeled journals (a subscripion to Cell is currently $349 for one year of access… and that’s one of the “we support Open Access” journals, which charges “from $150 to $9,900 APC per article” to the authors, APC = Author’s Page Charge — that is, the vanity-press model); and

    The American Bar Association, which has difficulty spelling “science” because there is no science (or math) requirement for admission to law school — if you got a bachelor’s degree, that’s good enough, resulting in (at present) more than one member of the Supreme Court whose science background stops at stereotypical “Rocks for Jocks” and “Physics for Poets” courses (which are typically passed by memorizing answers from the textbook, not through any application of scientific reasoning)

    We† are not amused.

    † This has nothing to do with “imperial/royal forms of address.” It is, instead, the unusual instance of my multiple personalities agreeing on something.

    • For that matter, lawyers are some of the least-trusted people in America. How the ABA expects that tying themselves to such a project will help it rather than hurt it is beyond my understanding.

      • Because the ABA leadership Is Righteously Defensive of Our Interests. Just ask them.

        But not if “our” includes “veterans.” Or “unrecognized Others” (choose your axis of “other”ness; mine started out as “intellectuals” and “scientists” — decades before law school — before I became aware of certain aspects of my ancestry). Or “interested in other than profit.” Or “effective self-regulating profession worthy of public trust.” Or “first-generation college graduate.” Or “willing to admit error and make fundamental changes to prevent those errors from recurring.” Or… never mind.

  2. One reason why the US COVID numbers looked worse than other countries is that US reporting was mostly accurate. (And political tension played a role there.) Some countries weren’t able to be that precise and others didn’t *want* to be.

    One example: at the time China was reporting zero deaths and minimal infections, 24M cell phone numbers were reported as going “inactive”. To this day the narrative of Chinese covid success is still trotted out regularly even as their economy is withering from endless outbreaks.

    Dissent is good. It helps everybody when the populace forces honesty. On all sides.

  3. I don’t know if we can say if we have a deeper mistrust of what politicians say or have just got older, but on non-covid matters, they have seemed happy to just kick problems down the road for future governments to deal with. About 40 years ago their was a fuss about a medical issue here in Australia. The politicians kicked it down the road by saying ok they may have some issues in retirement age. Guess what the subjects had a 100% death rate by retirement age. There is no one left alive to make a fuss.

    The media have shown they can not be trusted, we no longer believe they are telling the truth 100%,

    The media spent months trumpeting that this one study showed 90% effectiveness. Ok real world, about a year ago when things started opening up again. There was a spreader event in a nightclub. Ok according to the media the state was 90+% vaccinated, Odds where that almost everyone had had their second dose within the last 6 months mainly because almost nobody had a second dose older then 9 month prior to that at time. If the night-club has been following the government policy’s then 100% of the people should have been double vaxxed.

    In the end about 1/3 of the people attending caught covid.

    So we are left with either its not 90% effective, it wears off quicker then announced, the nightclub was not following regulations and the 90% vaccination rate is incorrect, or a combination of the above.

    So it can be assumed someone is lying without knowing exactly who. ‘
    Note even if the nightclub was not following regulations then random odds are 90% of 90% assuming that the spreader(s) managed to come into contact with 100% of the people present,They where not even talking about 3rd and 4th doses at that point.

    • Saint Fauci gave the latest word from the heights of his ivory tower just the other day – the vaccines DO NOT prevent contracting CoViD, nor do they prevent transmission. The only “science” that is being pushed now is that they lessen the symptoms*.

      That is the problem of a great many with the “science” today – statements of “fact” are made, supposedly based on data. The same data which leads to a different, contradictory “fact” the next month, the next week, or even the next day.

      Now, after that admission, those of us that actually use logic on occasion can ask “Then why are you still pushing mass vaccination of children that only have mild symptoms in the rare instances when they have any at all? They can still be infected, and still pass it on to Grandma, right?”

      * Which, for anyone who has even briefly studied epidemics, is a somewhat suspicious “fact” – as viruses naturally become less nasty as they mutate into new variants in the same species. Major nasty mutations develop in other species (historically, before bioengineering). When they adapt to humans, they are a “new” thing and can be very deadly at first.

  4. Having had extensive involvement with both organizations that are highlighted in the OP during prior lives, I can speak with some degree of inside information about each.

    Elsevier is all about making money, which it does quite nicely and will continue to do so long as the academics and researchers who voluntarily provide it valuable content at no cost under under the “publish or perish” mandate of academic and scientific career advancement. I keep waiting for someone to open-source a credible alternative to Elsevier’s cash kingdom, but am not aware of any movement in that direction.

    The American Bar Association is a less of a money-maker, but still full of quirks. First, the ABA is a voluntary association. Generally speaking, being a member of a state bar association via passing a state bar exam, is necessary to practice law in that state.

    The ABA’s most active sub-organizations are the practice sections. For example, the litigation section, the family law (divorce) section, etc., etc. Most of the active members of the ABA (not an overwhelmingly large percentage of total members) would be hard-pressed to name anyone who is a member of the Board of Governors.

    The BOG meets a handful of times each year at an expensive location to conduct business, chat and drink. The ABA paid staff does most of the real work and the BOG rubber-stamps most of it.m

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