And then, like a gift from the universe, came the confessions that shattered the entire facade.
Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet—one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world—finally admitted what independent researchers have been screaming for decades: The whole system is compromised.
In his April 2015 editorial "What is medicine's 5 sigma?" Horton wrote: "The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."
Let that sink in for a moment. The editor of one of the world's most respected medical journals just told you that half of what gets published might be complete bullshit.
But Horton wasn't alone in this devastating assessment. Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine—another of the world's most prestigious medical publications—delivered an equally damning verdict: "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines."