Evidence-based medicine in the world of ‘alternate facts’

Abstract

The world hasn’t yet really decided what the presidency of Donald Trump will leave as its legacy but whatever it is you can be certain it won’t be the normal presidential legacy. Few observers, whatever their leaning, would argue that Trump’s policies are without controversy and there is little in the American President’s politics that we can find reflected in the views of the editorial staff here at 360 . A quite astounding phenomenon has been the development of the term ‘alternate facts’. A jaw-dropping approach which is at best misdirection and at worst flagrant lies. This phenomenon has set me thinking about probity and specifically research ethics. To coin a new phrase, ‘alternate facts papers’ are not as rare as one might think. The best estimates of the number of retracted papers would suggest …