IBM fights to suppress cancer probe

[dArKeR]

Scientists have voted to boycott an international journal after its owners blocked publication of a paper claiming large numbers of IBM workers have died prematurely of cancers and other diseases.

The development is unprecedented and has triggered a battle between the computer company and researchers. IBM says the paper is flawed but denies putting pressure on the publishing group Elsevier to stop the paper's publication.

Dr Joe LaDou, of the University of California at San Francisco, who tried to publish the paper, said the study was an important work that reveals the serious health risks facing workers in the computing industry. He has bitterly attacked the decision to block the paper and has been backed by all other contributors to Clinics in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. They have demanded that all their papers for that issue be withdrawn until the publisher relents.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=117532

Incredible! I have to go to another country to find out what's happening 10 minutes from my home! Filthy scum liberal press in America!

[teryang]

1. Elsevier is a business

They publish "reviews" in journals which serve to promote pharmaceutical products.

Reviews actually have less standing than research papers. The way this interesting article is written makes it sound like "reviews" are peer reviewed which they typically are not. A research study actually is a higher form of scientific publication. I would not expect such a study to published by Elsevier except as a reprint service from archives of certain journals.

A new study to get standing to be relied upon to express an expert opinion under the Daubert/Kumho standard would need to get through the peer review threshold of scientific publications, the best known of which is the New England Journal of Medicine. This is not necessarily always true (sometimes unpublished studies may be relied upon if the findings and principles are generally accepted in the scientific community) but it is going to be a bright line if the odds ratio is only around two.

[UpInArms]

2. thanks for the post

I have been trying to stay abreast of this information, but as you pointed out, there is very little information that can be found here in the good ole' USoA regarding what is happening.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. But by bringing Daubert into the discussion

you are essentially conflating legal standards related to expert testimony in court with standards used by scientists. The two are not identical in either purpose or effect.

[AP]

4. Elsevier is a huge publisher and they publish MANY refereed professional

journals.

The refereed journal in this case is, "Clinics in Occupational and Environmental Medicine."

Clearly the problem here is that a huge corporate owner of all these small professional scientific journals is able to put corporate interests first and shut down knowledge.

That's a dangerous thing.

[teryang]

5. Reviews are secondary sources

...and do not have independent value as scientific research. As far as being "refereed" this is not the same as peer review. Science dominates any consideration of Daubert standards. The epidemiologists I know have never disputed the applicability of the standards.

[dArKeR]

6. Scientists launch boycott after IBM suppression

CENSORSHIP: The computer giant is accused of persuading a scientific journal to block an academic investigation of high rates of cancer among its employees

THE OBSERVER , LONDON

Scientists have voted to boycott an international journal after its owners blocked publication of a paper claiming large numbers of IBM workers have died prematurely of cancers and other diseases.

The development is unprecedented and has triggered a battle between the computer company and researchers. IBM says the paper is flawed but denies putting pressure on the publishing group Elsevier to stop the paper's publication.

Dr. Joe LaDou of the University of California at San Francisco, who tried to publish the paper, said the study was an important work that reveals the serious health risks facing workers in the computing industry. He has bitterly attacked the decision to block the paper and has been backed by all other contributors to Clinics in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. They have demanded that all their papers for that issue be withdrawn until the publisher relents.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/06/21/2003175949

[jdj]

7. Does anyone know what the chemicals are that

are supposed to cause the health risk?

Mercury?

[mulethree]

8. Lots of chems, but I don't see mercury

http://www.towardfreedom.com/1999/nov99/toxicchips.htm

Perhaps explaining why so much electronics manufacturing has moved to Malaysia, Costa Rica, Taiwan and Korea.