We've previously questioned some of the studies that have been accepted for publication in the journal Pediatrics, and now Dr. Sara B. DeMauro of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has done the same in her study which appears in that very journal.
After examining 179 randomized controlled trials of treatments in babies from six prestigious medical journals, Dr. DeMauro and her colleagues found that only about a fifth of the studies stated the main purpose of their research, called the primary outcome. Without this important information, you have to question the whole study, Dr. DeMauro explains. She also found that half the studies failed to adhere to reporting standards set by the medical community. Sub-par reporting practices were particularly prevalent in the journal Pediatrics, while others such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association fared better.
But as ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava points out, Some of these errors are serious because, when you publish a paper, your message should be clear enough that other researchers can follow your protocol. Yet not all the blame can be placed on the researchers since, as Dr. Kava explains, Many times, it's a factor of what the editors do and don't require; so they are responsible as well.
It doesn't seem that there's an intentional distortion of data going on here, says ACSH's Alyssa Pelish, Yet, ultimately, these studies are still unreliable and because the emphasis is on children's medical treatment, it seems scarier still.