<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11.1999998092651px; line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">Advancement of Science and John Bohannon is a scientist. It does not seem unreasonable that they should aspire to operate under practices contextual to those expected of scientists.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11.1999998092651px; line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">I raise this point now because John Bohannon has again engaged in a <a href="/BioethicsBlog/post.cfm/peer-review-and-open-access-journals-part-2">sting operation</a>. In this operation the goal was to see if he could get flawed science not only accepted into scientific journals but could he also have it distributed by the press thereby having it read by millions. So, to make a long story short, he created a fake research institute (Institute of Diet and Health) for which he created a fake website. He engaged in these activities under the name Johannes Bohannon. He had two collaborators, Peter Onmeken and Diane Lobl who were preparing a television documentary on junk-science in the diet industry. They were ready as he wrote to “recruit research subjects, a German doctor to run the study, and a statistician friend to massage the data.” So they recruited subjects without ethical review and approval by an Institutional Review Board or Research Ethics Committee. They recruited these unwitting subjects by deception, exposed them to at least some discomfort and risk as there were blood sample taken. They completed their study with the “real” result of increased weight loss in subjects who ate bitter chocolate. At least it was a real study with inadequate number of subjects, massaged statistics and apparent failure to do any sort of correction for the large number of comparisons they made.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11.1999998092651px; line-height: 19.0400009155273px;"><strong style="color: #34405b; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our <a style="color: #000099; text-decoration: underline;" href="http://www.amc.edu/Academic/bioethics/index.cfm">website</a>.</strong></p>
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