Peer Review

Written evidence submitted by David Smith (PR 97)

During your discussions today at the Science and Technology committee the concept of reporting bias came up. I think the Committee should consider making it a requirement for all research which is publicly funded to be published and/or made freely accessible to the public and the scientific community within a set timescale of it being completed, particularly in relation to medical research.

Research done properly is always valuable even if it does not support the scientists original hypothesis. A lot of scientists have tendency not to publish or make accessible data which is not supportive of their original research theme often deeming it to be a failure, however this is not the case if the research has been carried out with sufficient scientific rigor.

Again the debacle of the MMR case was raised however it must be realized that this was primarily as a result of how the media report science and not as a result of the peer review process failing. A lot of scientists at the time clearly stated that the data used to denounce the vaccine was rubbish. To that end the Committee should consider issuing guidelines to the press regarding how science is reported in the press, the founding principle of which should be that the journalist must reference the scientific data relied upon in the article. I have raised this issue with the BBC and the Press Complaints Commission however the request has fallen on deaf ears.

David Smith

June 2011