The disgraced South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk is not the only case of data fabrication. The world has witnessed several scandals, including “ghost” studies that some still believe in.
– In 1998, the prestigious British journal Lancet published a study claiming that a vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella caused autism in children. However, most of the authors later withdrew their names from the paper. A series of subsequent scientific studies found no link between the vaccine and autism, yet the topic remains controversial to this day.
– In 2002, an article in the American journal Science asserted that lesions resembling those of Parkinson’s disease were found in the brains of monkeys injected multiple times with Ecstasy. Later, the authors retracted this finding, admitting that the vial they thought contained Ecstasy was actually mislabeled.
– In a 2001 study published in Nature, a group of scientists claimed that genetically modified crops were damaging harvests in Mexico. However, the editors of this paper later found too many issues in the research, leading them to question it, and in reality, no genetically modified crops were found to be cultivated together.
– In 1999, U.S. federal investigators discovered a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory had fabricated evidence for a shocking “discovery” linking power lines to cancer.
– Dr. Landrum Shettles from Columbia University sold over 1 million copies of his book “How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby,” which proposed techniques and timing for conceiving a child of a specific gender. However, none of Shettles’ methods have been proven effective.
– Laetrile, a drug derived from apricot pits and other fruits, was claimed by a group of scientists to have cancer-curing properties. However, the vast majority of scientists later exposed this quackery, asserting that it had no health value beyond the lethal cyanide toxin.
