DEADLY TOLL WHEN DOCTORS GO ROGUE

SOME of the more shocking examples of research fraud include the story of Don Poldermans, a former professor of cardiology in Holland. He claimed his research showed that beta-blockers (drugs used to treat high blood pressure and angina) should be used to reduce stress on the heart during non-cardiac surgery.

One of his studies showed that the drugs were associated with a tenfold reduction in heart attack or heart-related death in highrisk patients with existing heart disease within 30 days of surgery. He was later exposed for fabricating data and subsequent studies showed this approach actually increased the risk of death by 27 per cent.

It’s estimated that 800,000 people across Europe, including 80,000 Britons, died unnecessarily as a result.

More notoriously, Andrew Wakefield’s claim in 1998 that his research showed that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine was linked to autism was also discredited as fraudulent — but not before it had led to a huge drop in the number of children having the MMR jab. Wakefield’s study is being blamed for the re-emergence of measles in the UK and is also seen as the start of the anti-vax movement among parents rejecting the Covid vaccination for their children.

Just last year a review of 26 major trials of the drug ivermectin, an anti-parasite medicine that’s claimed can treat Covid, found that a third had serious errors or signs of potential fraud.