Researchers Retract Academic Paper Because Company Complains The Results Hurt Its Profits
from the did-someone-say-cyanide? dept
An important aspect of the academic publishing process is the facility to retract papers at a later date if the work turns out to have serious errors or -- in rare cases -- to be fraudulent. For many years, the site Retraction Watch has played an important role in keeping track of when papers are retracted -- and why. But even with that long experience, its writers were surprised by the following case:
It's not unusual for us to hear allegations that journals have caved to corporate demands that they retract papers. And companies have certainly objected to the publication of results that painted their products in an unflattering light.
Here's why the retraction was made:
But what we've never explicitly seen is a retraction notice that comes right out and says that they only reason a paper is being removed from the literature is that a company complained. That's the jaw-dropping case with "Visual defects among consumers of processed cassava (gari)," a paper published earlier this year in the African Journal of Food SciencesThe retraction is based on the fact that a Gari processing company has requested the retraction this paper from journal's website and publisher's database since it is crumbling their business inputs to their competitors leading to a drastic reduction in customers and consumers hence affecting their productivity and profitability.
Well, that's hardly a surprise given what the paper claimed:
The visual acuity of consumers of gari showed a significant decrease (P<0.05) when compared with that of the non consumers of gari. The incidence of color blindness is higher in gari consumers than the non consumers. Visual defects are correlated to the frequency of eating gari, for how long gari has been eaten and age. The high prevalence of visual defects among the consumers of gari may be due to the exposure to unsafe amount of cyanide in gari that was consumed over a long period of time.
Some comments to the post on Retraction Watch also raise questions about the validity of those results. But given the seriousness of the potential health issues, the correct response is surely to repeat the research with even greater rigor, rather than simply making the paper and its troubling results disappear.
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Filed Under: gari, profits, retractions, science
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I demand that all you scientists and researchers retract your research immediately and state that cigarette's actually reduce your odds of getting lung cancer!
I'll even give you all some high paying no work jobs at my company!
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In either case, hope the one's who got purchased got a good deal, as after something like this only complete fools would trust anything they put out in the future, their credibility is gone.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQr5PMSqkSk
Interestingly when I youtube search 'The American Parasite' youtube doesn't have this complete video and instead has a bunch of irrelevant videos for at least the first three pages. Instead 'U S Parasite Part 1', only a small part of the entire video, shows up.
Also various listings of this video have been removed in the past.
(BTW, I am not advocating the product being sold by this video neither am I saying that candida is the root cause of everyone's problems, I only link to this video because it does a good job explaining the corrupt nature of how aspartame got FDA approved).
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Dang
And all this time I thought my vision problems were only related to that private workout that the Catholic preist said would make me go blind.
Although with the time I'll be saving not eating tapioca I know what I'll be doing...
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Cyanide Versus Starvation.
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Re: Cyanide Versus Starvation.
Cyanide is a common chemical defense used by a thousand or more plants. Peach pits, lima beans, manioc and many other species produce the toxin. I have no idea how much cyanide is left after the preparation of such items that used for food, nor what its long term effects on the body are. But it is not likely to be healthy.
I would suspect that those who consume such preparations already have short lifespans, poor nutrition, scarce or nonexistent medical care, and a wide variety of other diseases and conditions that obscure the long term effects of cyanide from such sources. Even from what are now believed to be appropriate and safe methods of detoxification at this time.
A general discussion of the dangers of longterm exposure to cynade from the gold industries viewpoint can be found at:
http://www.cyanidecode.org/cyanide-facts/environmental-health-effects
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Re: Re: Cyanide Versus Starvation.
A common bargain is a fruit which is edible, although the seed is poison. It mostly harms animals with crushing teeth adapted to secure nourishment from grass or tree bark, the classic example being cows.
In the case of lima beans, cooking breaks down the cyanide, and probably has the same effect as natural decay, or, as the wine ad would have it, "I will sell no wine until it is time."
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tf.asp?id=71&tid=19
http://www.futurity.org/a-dash-of-cyan ide-with-those-beans/
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Your statement though seems to indicate a preference for gut feelings rather than demonstrated fact or likely hypothesis.
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While it sounds cutely anthropomorphic to consider "bargains" being made between different organisms, evolutionary biologist will tell you that there are no truly commensal organisms. Not even those reputed to "eat at the same table." There is no driving force, merely random opportunism.
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Vegetables, to Groaker, #15
Come to that, I was looking at an issue of Trains magazine, which had a retrospective special on American railroad food, with assorted reproductions of cartoons, advertisements, menus, etc. Back in the 1940's, a major American railroad's set menu in the dining car consisted of: meat, potatoes, dinner roll and butter, small glass of tomato juice, and coffee. That's more or less the equivalent of a Big Mac combo, but of course, fourteen-year-old kids will eat anything. It wouldn't be acceptable at the Howard Johnson's level, or for airline catering, or anything like that.
Of course, nowadays, when Amtrak is given some money to play with, they try to do regional cuisine. When they were flush during the Clinton Administration, they did "down home" stuff, eg. Red Beans and Rice on the City of New Orleans train (New Orleans-Chicago), and Tex-Mex Chili on the Texas Eagle (Chicago-San Antonio). When Obama gave them some money, they went "restaurant," for example, a Banana Foster Crepe Purse for breakfast on the Northeast Corridor (marinate bananas in orange juice, wrap the whole business in a pancake, tie it up with a string). They also did Bison Meat Loaf on the Empire Builder (Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle).
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Re: Vegetables, to Groaker, #15
I have never in my life tasted a brussel sprout, cooked or otherwise, that wasn't unpleasantly bitter! The only brussel sprout dish I've ever tasted that approached edible was when the sprouts were cooked and and served in a bowl of melted butter. Even then, the bitterness was unpleasant, but butter is delicious.
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Re: Re: Vegetables, to Groaker, #15
I've never had Norwegian fermented shark, but I've had fermented fish sauce, what the Vietnamese call Nuoc Mam, though I got it from a hole-in-the-wall Filipino grocery store. It tasted sort of like a mixture of soy sauce and ripe Limburger cheese. Interesting! Of course, one time, I was buying Limburger cheese in a Safeway in a college town in Oregon. The cashier was a little golden-blonde Skando-American girl, straight out of Lake Wobegone. She looked up at me, and asked, surely I didn't mean to _eat_ this stuff? She assured me, quite seriously, that the sole purpose of Limbuger cheese is to smear on peoples windshields on Halloween.
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Get some more academic pens out
My bad.
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Re: Get some more academic pens out
Even small modifications of the pH of the various bodily fluids, of a reasonably healthy human, are a terrible idea and possibly quite lethal. Indeed, a pH outside the reference range for humans almost always indicates a profound health disorder.
The body attempts to maintain hydronium ion concentrations at optimal levels for the functions of metabolic processes.
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There are also significant emotional ties to certain tastes and smells. Disgust for example, is learned not inherent. Most infants and toddlers have no difficulty in detecting fecal and urine odors, but are no more affected by them than a cat or a dog would be. It is the parents, siblings and peers who teach young children that painting with feces on the walls is disgusting. And that feces, used as an artistic medium or not is repugnant.
I find the thought of h�karl, a Norwegian dish made of fermented shark, repulsive. But apparently the Norwegians enjoy it. I would have no problem with eating a fried grasshopper, but I know many who would be aghast at the thought.
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