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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20000

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

 

Publication type: Journal Article

Pickett FA
Misrepresentation of Scientific Studies Misleads Professional Caregivers
Dentition 2012 Feb; 1:(1):14-19
http://www.thedentition.com/ojs/index.php/dent/article/view/3/19


Abstract:

Oral health professionals are scientists, and are expected by patients to use science as a basis for answering clinical
questions, and for developing treatment plans based on reliable science. Patients expect to receive transparent
and accurate information regarding oral health. It is the obligation of oral healthcare professionals to be a reliable
resource. This cannot occur if the clinician does not understand how to assess the reliability of clinical study design
nor to interpret statistical information. This article presents examples of misrepresentations of product information to
illustrate this disturbing action. Basic information on applied statistical science are defined.

Keywords:
Evidence based science, bias, study design

 

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963