Scientists sue journal for retracting studies on dangers of abortion pill
A group of 10 scientists are suing Sage Journal for retracting three studies showing the dangers of the abortion pill mifepristone.
One study, published in November 2021, found that women who took mifepristone experienced a 4,000% increase in critical emergency room visits between 2002 and 2015. This was in contrast to far smaller increases in critical ER visits among women who gave birth (20.9%), women who never got pregnant (101%), and women who had surgical abortions (450.6%).
Another study, published in May 2022, concluded that a woman is more likely to be re-admitted to the hospital after an ER visit if the physician failed to identify that she had an abortion.
These studies formed the basis for Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s decision to block the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, though he was overruled by the US Supreme Court in June.
They were retracted after a single reader complained that the researchers were members of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a pro-life organization, and questioned if the data were “misrepresented.” The first study was subjected to another peer review which claimed the data were "unreliable."
The scientists, which include Charlotte Lozier Institute Vice President and Director of Data Analytics Dr. James Studnicki, have filed a lawsuit in California’s Ventura Superior Court against Sage for violating state contract law. Studnicki was booted from Sage’s Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology journal even before the studies were retracted, The Daily Wire reported.
“Sage’s wrongdoing has been causing enormous and incalculable harm to the Authors’ professional reputations, as Sage intended. Because of Sage’s retractions, the Authors and their research have been attacked by the media and by other authors, and the Authors have had new research proposals inexplicably turned away by other publications that now fear associating with them,” says the petition, filed by Alliance Defending Freedom. “The Authors have years—even decades—of fruitful research ahead of them, but they are now being treated as pariahs.”
The researchers say they are seeking good-faith arbitration with Sage.
“By retracting three studies by Charlotte Lozier Institute scholars without any legitimate objection to any of the findings, Sage put politics over publication ethics and blatantly disregarded the principles of open inquiry and commitment to science,” said Studnicki. “The authors’ well-earned reputations as highly qualified scientists and researchers have been immeasurably harmed. We’re hopeful this opportunity to compel Sage to arbitrate in good faith will shed light on their meritless actions to silence our research.”
Academic journals as government mouthpieces
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became apparent that academic journals were rejecting research, on COVID-19 and other topics, that did not fit certain government narratives. This practice has become so well-known that many researchers who want their papers to be published omit or misrepresent data to fit an accepted political agenda.
In an article for The Free Press last year, Breakthrough Institute Climate and Energy Co-Director Patrick Brown revealed he submitted a paper that he knew was not “the full truth.”
The paper examined the link between “climate change” and wildfires that ravaged various locales such as Canada and Hawaii. While several factors contributed to the wildfires — including many reports of arson — Brown excluded them and blamed “climate change,” which he knew the editors of Nature would favor.
Brown added that science journal editors “have made it abundantly clear” that “they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.”
These editors wield major influence on scientific fields, he added, choosing submissions at their discretion and publishing them as supposedly quality science.
“Savvy researchers tailor their studies to maximize the likelihood that their work is accepted. I know this because I am one of them.”
Aside from omitting contributing factors to wildfires like arson and forest management practices, Brown’s paper also selected metrics the authors knew would be most sensational, even if they were not the most intuitive metrics. For example, instead of focusing on how many more acres of land are damaged by “climate change,” the author wrote that wildfires have burned over 10,000 acres in a single day.
In reality, wildfires are declining, as noted by Canada’s own Canadian National Fire Database (CNFDB). Climate deaths have also been decreasing, Brown acknowledges, while crop yields have been increasing. Nevertheless, climate “scientists” continue to insist in their academic papers that “climate change” is evident in climate deaths and agricultural damage.
The Grievance Studies Affair
In a famous experiment, James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian submitted 20 academic papers to several “serious” peer-reviewed journals over 12 months. The articles espoused ludicrous notions — such as “female interpretive dance” being superior to Western astronomy, which was declared sexist. Another paper focused on “canine rape culture” and suggested dogs “suffer oppression based on (perceived) gender.” Yet another paper advocated for educators to bind white students in chains, and another rewrote portions of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in feminist language. All the submissions based their conclusions on social grievances rather than objective truth.
Only six of these papers were rejected by science journals. The experiment came to be known as The Grievance Studies Affair.
