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Meet science's new fraud fighter

Meet science's new fraud fighter

Politico25-06-2025
INVESTIGATION
A new scientific integrity project aims to find 'bad medical evidence before it kills people.'
Or at least that's how James Heathers describes his new role, as director of the Medical Evidence Project, on LinkedIn. The nascent project is predicated on the belief that uncovering flawed research is a slow and arduous process with few enforcement mechanisms. And allowing bad research to go unchecked can have high stakes. If flimsy or incorrect studies are incorporated into health or medical treatment guidelines, they can cause widespread public health harms.
The Medical Evidence Project will operate on two levels: Whistleblowers can use a tip line to alert Heathers' team to problematic research and the team will build digital infrastructure to vet research more efficiently.
The project is funded through a two-year $900,000 grant from Open Philanthropy. The nonprofit Center for Scientific Integrity, the parent organization of Retraction Watch, a blog that tracks retractions in scientific publications, is running the initiative.
Heathers, a Boston-based research scientist leading the project, talked with Erin about the project's launch earlier this month and why correcting the record matters:
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How will you choose which research tips to pursue?
I triage things in terms of: What is it supposed to prevent? What harm could be caused? What actually happens? Let's say we were talking about vitamin K or another necessary supplementation to support healthy birth. That's really important. Is everyone eating enough salmon? Significantly less important.
If there are things that are inaccurate, obviously that's a problem. But if there are things that are inaccurate that are going to hurt people and the research is provably inaccurate, then I have officially become very interested, which is often a process that people who are less than honest do not enjoy.
If you identify research that's inaccurate and harmful, what happens next?
It depends on the nature of the inaccuracy. Let's say there were two studies in the same meta-analysis, and one was heavily plagiarized from the other, and it was fake, but it was being counted twice in a meta-analysis. Let's also say that the outcome of that was particularly harmful.
I have no interest in an 18-month process where they will eventually conclude that there was a problem if people are going to get hurt in the meantime.
Those things, frankly, go straight to press. The proper channels are unfit for purpose when it comes to things that hurt people. If we find a paper that's mathematically impossible, we don't need to have a conversation about whether or not they meant it, or what was in their heart when the paper was made wrong.
I don't really care. What I care about is the consequences of it being wrong. Something like that we would pursue immediately — in public.
If it's something more complicated, more abstract, bigger, less threatening, then I will probably have to take that to journals, universities, maybe scientific societies and try to get clarity on elements of what's happening.
Does pursuing action in public mean putting out reports or press releases? Calling The New York Times?
It could very well be all of those. Because we're a kind of sister organization of Retraction Watch, some of it will likely go straight to Retraction Watch. I'll look for larger or more prominent outlets based on the seriousness of what's found.
This is global, so if we have a problem that's within, let's say the Canadian gastroenterology guidelines, it's much better published in Toronto than it is in Sydney or Dubai or Singapore or New York.
It's an interesting time to launch a project on scientific integrity. Trust in the medical research enterprise is low right now in the U.S.
People have been very critical of the regulatory system here, but it's infinitely better than it is in a lot of other places. Historically, approval here carries a collective of weight internationally.
This country has an excellent, developed medical research infrastructure. It's also 4 percent of the whole world. So the other 96 percent have got what they've got, and usually it's not as good as the FDA.
For all its vagaries and oversights, I promise you, the rest of the world exists, and a lot of the time it's playing catch-up to Uncle Sam.
Is there anything else readers should know about the project?
I'll definitely take tips. It's very straightforward. It's tips@medicalevidenceproject.org.
WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE
This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care.
While President Donald Trump and Republicans seek to turn the screws on elite liberal universities with their megabill, a conservative Christian liberal arts college has managed to secure a carveout, POLITICO's Caitlin Oprysko reports.
Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Danny Nguyen at dnguyen@politico.com, Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com.
Want to share a tip securely? Message us on Signal: Dannyn516.70, CarmenP.82, RuthReader.02 or ErinSchumaker.01.
WASHINGTON WATCH
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offered perhaps his most extensive statement on his department's stance on psychedelic research during a House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing Tuesday.
When Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) — who lost an eye fighting in Afghanistan and co-authored an amendment that passed in the 2024 spending bill to fund psychedelics trials for active-duty service members with PTSD — asked how he planned to accelerate psychedelic research and clinical trial access, Kennedy didn't hesitate.
He pointed to the 11 ongoing psychedelics clinical trials at the Department of Veterans Affairs and promised to launch trials at the Food and Drug Administration.
'We've brought on personnel to liaison directly with the VA. I talk with [VA Secretary] Doug Collins about it all the time. It's something that both of us are deeply interested in,' Kennedy said.
'Particularly for our retired service members, it's critically important that we make sure that the science on this is solid,' he said, adding, 'The preliminary results are very, very encouraging, and it's something that we want to pursue.'
Big picture: Psychedelics advocates have been trying to predict where the Trump administration stands on psychedelic medicine.
Last summer, at the end of the Biden administration, the psychedelics industry suffered a setback when the FDA rejected Lykos Therapeutics' application for MDMA, also known as ecstasy, combined with talk therapy as a PTSD treatment, on the grounds that the regimen was not proven to be safe or effective.
What's next: On Tuesday, Kennedy appeared willing to revisit that decision. 'These are people who badly need some kind of therapy. Nothing else is working for them,' Kennedy told Crenshaw.
'[FDA Commissioner] Marty Makary has told me that we don't want to wait two years to get this done,' he added. 'This line of therapeutics has tremendous advantage if given in a clinical setting, and we are working very hard to make sure that that happens within 12 months.'
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They wanted Hollywood smiles. They got dental nightmares.
They wanted Hollywood smiles. They got dental nightmares.

Yahoo

time11 hours ago

  • Yahoo

They wanted Hollywood smiles. They got dental nightmares.

Lyndsay Carreno was on a date a few years ago when she bit into a sushi roll and felt a veneer slip out of place. She didn't panic; it was a sensation she had felt before. Carreno was 24 when she had porcelain shells placed over four of her own front teeth, something she did to improve the appearance of her smile. Within a couple of years, she'd had two of her new teeth replaced, and she regretted having the procedure done in the first place. 'Aesthetically, they give me what I want,' Carreno, who is now 31, tells Yahoo of the veneers. Her natural teeth were jagged and too large for her liking. 'But to this day, I'm still dealing with issues.' The pursuit of perfect-looking teeth has fueled the demand for veneers, which has a global market that's predicted to be valued at $3.88 billion by 2031. Data shows that over 50% of dental visits are currently driven by aesthetic concerns rather than dental issues. Such was the case with Carreno, who only had cosmetic rather than functional complaints about her teeth. It was her mom's dental makeover — she got a set of implants and crowns after losing her front teeth in an accident — that drew Carreno to consider veneers. 'I just remember hers looked so beautiful,' she says. 'She had no issues with them, and she was ecstatic to have them.' But dental implants are different from veneers (which also vary in technique). 'Hers are screwed into a surgical peg; they're actually more structurally sound than her teeth were,' Carreno points out. 'What is a veneer? It's a porcelain piece that they glue to the top of your now-shaved-down tooth. When you hear it explained like that, obviously, you shouldn't do that to your perfectly functioning, healthy tooth. But you just hear that it's gonna look the way you want it to. And again, I was so young. I just did it.' TikTok influencer Alix Earle recently talked about having a similar feeling of regret after getting 10 veneers a few years back. She told her followers about the experience in a video in which she was filing down a veneer that had chipped while traveling, and encouraged viewers to embrace their natural teeth. Dr. Sandip Sachar, a New York-based dentist who specializes in smile makeovers, tells Yahoo that veneer regret is a real thing that's often experienced by people who don't do enough prior research about the process or go to the wrong doctor. 'These patients were not fully educated and informed on the process and what to expect prior to starting, leaving them in shock after realizing a good amount of healthy tooth structure had been filed off irreversibly,' she says. 'This can have lasting consequences that no one really talks about.' 'I didn't really know what I was getting myself into' Carreno was living in Washington, D.C., when she got her veneers and went with a dentist who was friends with her colleague. 'He's the first dentist I saw, and he says, 'We can make them look beautiful,'' Carreno recalls. 'I don't get a second opinion, I don't talk to anyone else. I don't even look up reviews on him to see if he's good at cosmetics. I just go, 'OK, let's do it.'' Mackenzie Nichols, a registered nurse living in Chicago, hadn't experienced any issues with her teeth but was inspired to get veneers at age 27 when she saw how they improved the appearance of her neighbor's teeth. 'I loved how they looked and I just wanted to do that too,' she tells Yahoo. She sought out the dentist her neighbor had used. Nichols hadn't done much research when she went into the dentist's office. When she asked about having six of her top teeth done to make her smile more uniform, the dentist suggested that eight would 'just look better.' She trusted his opinion, and before long, he was shaving her teeth down to get them ready for some covers. 'I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I didn't realize how much of a process it was going to be,' says Nichols, now 30. 'Going into it, I was just excited to have a new smile. Then once we actually started the process, and my teeth were prepped and there was no going back, that's when I was like, 'What did I do?'' This is a common time for patients to experience some doubts, according to Sachar. She calls it prep regret. 'You may think you're OK with filing down some of the tooth, but as soon as it's actually done and you realize how irreversible it is, you're going to go home with the sinking feeling of, What have I done?' she says. It's a normal response, even for those who have carefully thought through the decision and vetted their provider. For people who haven't, or those who are filing down healthy teeth, that regret might be worse, especially when the process continues to unfold in a way that makes a patient lack confidence. Nichols recalls being sent home from her dentist's office in temporary veneers, typically made of resin and worn while the permanent porcelain teeth are created, which is a common practice. However, hers weren't secured to her natural teeth, and she was told she had to be on a liquid diet in order not to disrupt them for the interim weeks. She lasted less than 12 hours before making an emergency return to the office and having the owner of the dental practice take over her case. The eight veneers that she initially agreed to get done turned into eight crowns — which cover the entirety of the tooth, rather than just the front surface — and four veneers because of the mistakes the original dentist made in prep. 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Carreno switched providers after moving states and having multiple veneers pop out, even just from flossing her teeth. She's also had to have a veneer replaced because of gum recession that it caused. 'This is $2,000 every time I'm saying one's been replaced by the way, because you've got to get a new tooth made at the lab,' she says. 'And every time one has to be replaced, I'm getting a [numbing] shot in the front of my mouth, getting a temporary [veneer] put on, getting the shot again, getting the real one glued on. And it's four or five weeks between all of that.' Ali Holston got veneers to address dental problems caused by a recurring benign teratoma tumor in her jawbone. The 37-year-old has dealt with various complications ever since. From the temporaries alone, she experienced bad breath (known as veneer breath) because of bacteria that formed between her natural tooth and the ill-fitting cover. Within the first week of getting her permanent veneers, three of them popped off. The smell returned each time. 'The third time I went in [to the dentist] with my veneer in a Ziploc bag and said, 'I did not sign up for this,'' says Holston. She switched providers shortly after and was told that the veneers weren't sealed properly, which would allow them to easily pop off and eventually cause tooth decay (hence, the smell). Luckily, Holston got her money back from the first dentist and had her veneers redone by the new provider. 'I've only had the new permanent veneers on for about a week now. And I love them. They're so much better,' she says. Aesthetics While Sachar says that making veneers look good is the easiest part of the process for dentists, not everybody is happy with the results. Holston, for instance, hated the look of the set placed on by her first dentist, who she says put them on her teeth without showing her beforehand what they would look like. 'He made this big show of revealing my smile to me. I had an out-of-body experience when he showed me my teeth. I feel like I floated up out of my body,' Holston tells Yahoo. 'It was awful.' She's thrilled with the newer set, which she says 'looks like my normal, regular teeth, just a better version, which I'm really happy about.' Nichols, on the other hand, still feels like she 'settled' on her smile simply because she wanted the process to end. The first three sets of porcelain veneers that she saw were far from what she wanted. 'By the time the fourth set came in, I was just so tired of being in temps,' she says. 'I don't hate how [the permanent veneers] look, but if I could go back, I would have them remake them again. They're not exactly what I wanted.' As for Carreno, she cried tears of joy when looking at her veneers for the first time. 'I was so happy because I had always chewed with my mouth closed or with my hand in front of me. I never smiled in photos because of my teeth,' she says. 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time14 hours ago

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The Air Force started studying cancer rates in the nuclear missile community in 2023 due to pressure from ailing missile officers. Lawmakers may soon order an independent re-do of an ongoing Air Force study on possible cancer risk in personnel manning its nuclear missiles. A provision in the House's draft defense policy bill would, if passed, require the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to commission a study examining "occupational health and safety conditions" in Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile facilities. The sites include the underground alert facilities where Air Force missile officers spend long shifts prepared to launch in the case of nuclear war. The move comes after an independent researcher concluded there is an increase in cases of a rare cancer at an Air Force missile base in Montana, adding another wrinkle to a years-long push for answers. The new, congressionally directed research would also scrutinize the methodology and design of an ongoing Air Force study of the issue. The Air Force Medical Service and Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the service's nuclear-armed missile and bomber forces, began studying the missile community's cancer risks in 2023 after a Space Force officer compiled a list of cancer diagnoses at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana. The Air Force study's preliminary findings indicated troops in the nuclear missile community don't have higher cancer diagnosis or death rates than other active duty servicemembers or the general U.S. population. The official study's environmental surveys, however, confirmed the presence of polychorinated biphenyls − a likely cancer-causing chemical − in alert facilities at Malmstrom and at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. And an independent assessment of self-reported Non-Hodgkin lymphoma cases at Malmstrom released in April found an increase in diagnoses among missileers. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Nebraska, submitted the independent study amendment, which cleared a key hurdle when it passed the House Armed Services Committee on July 16. Bacon told USA TODAY that a meeting with one of his constituents − an ailing retired missile officer − moved him to author the provision. "Let's make sure that we have some outside experts working with the Air Force," said Bacon, who is a retired Air Force brigadier general. "We want to make sure there's credibility and, whatever results come out, that we've done total due diligence." The Omaha-based representative added that the Air Force needs to learn what's wrong in the aging Minuteman III launch facilities before it builds new ones for the planned Sentinel ICBM. Air Force officials defended the rigor and transparency of their ongoing study in a statement to USA TODAY. "We welcome the opportunity of scientific and medical professionals to review Air Force studies and to provide comments," said Alana Miller, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Air Force Surgeon General. Miller emphasized the internal independence of Air Force epidemiologists conducting the study and their partnerships with external researchers who review their findings. The Torchlight Initiative, an advocacy group for missile community members, praised the independent study amendment in a press release. Torchlight has documented more than 800 self-reported cases of cancer and other exposure-related diseases among ICBM airmen and veterans. "There is an urgent need for ... thorough independent research, formal acknowledgement of likely exposures, and a sustained commitment to safeguard future personnel through enhanced environmental monitoring," the group argued. For the independent study to occur, the provision must make it into the final defense policy bill later this year. The House and Senate typically pass competing versions of the legislation before negotiating a compromise bill for the president's signature. Davis Winkie's role covering nuclear threats and national security at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Outrider Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.

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