Anti-abortion researchers ‘exaggerate’ and ‘obfuscate’ in their scientific papers – but by the time they’re published, it’s too late
A pharmacy professor who strenuously avoids heated political discussions is an unlikely candidate to get involved in a fight over abortion, particularly one as high stakes as a case now before the supreme court: the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM).
But when the professor Chris Adkins of South University in Georgia emailed his concerns about an academic article to the editors of Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology, that’s exactly what happened.
The article had been published by an anti-abortion research institute and, perhaps unsurprisingly, concluded that medication abortion was far less safe than the accepted scientific consensus – one established by more than 100 peer-reviewed studies across multiple continents and two decades of real-world use.
“The way this study used this situation to exaggerate, and I’ll say obfuscate, the truth behind mifepristone’s safety profile is where I thought: ‘I’ll reach out to the journal and say I’ve got these issues,’” said Adkins, referring to the drug targeted by researchers. Mifepristone is one half of a two-pill regimen that treats miscarriage and ends early pregnancy, and its future hangs in the balance of the supreme court case, to be heard this week.
“I honestly didn’t think I would be the first to do that,” said Adkins.
Within a couple days of Adkins’ complaint, the global academic publisher Sage, which publishes the journal, began investigating. Within weeks, Sage retracted not one but three papers by the anti-abortion researchers.
Adkins’ concerns go to the heart of a problem that has bedeviled scientists for at least a decade: the judicial system’s repeated adoption of poor-quality evidence to justify litigation and legislation to restrict abortion. Often that evidence is produced by the anti-abortion movement itself.
It appears the “researchers” behind the three retracted papers were from an institute named the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI). Their website is clearly features antiabortion content, and opens with a pop-up message suggesting their pro-life “doctors and scientists” are under attack by journals and editors. (I will not be providing a link to their site.)
Further, CLI also attacks the use of mifepristone medication, further limiting women’s access to healthcare. Here’s an article related to the retraction of that garbage “research”:
It seems CLI is part of the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America non-profit organization.
Members of such institutions are liars much more so than “scientists” or “researchers.”
anti choice / forced birthers are utterly deranged
Live in CA long enough and you begin to see where a lot of junk science comes from. Sun burnt dipshits who think essential oils heal and shamanism is real.
They export that trash like their lives depend on it.
My dude, there’s a big difference in the damage done from pseudoscientific woo (like “healing crystals,” “chi,” “ginkgo biloba cures anything,” “magnets help with your balance”) and obviously incorrect studies published in journals for the sake of pushing political narratives.
I think there’s damage done by the woo (see: Steve Jobs as a high profile version of that) and we shouldn’t just ignore that. But the difference is that it boils down to those folks choosing the woo over science for themselves. The right wing anti choicers are trying to make the choice for other people.
One of my biggest concerns about the woo is that they rarely only damage themselves. They try to spread their “enlightened knowledge” to others, and force it upon their kids.
Far too many times during COVID I had the displeasure of having a parent pull their child from proper medical care in lieu of bleach enemas and horse dewormer, after a concerned family member brought the kid to the ER.
If you think the anti-abortion junk science was put out by shamanists, you have a massive misunderstanding of the situation and society at large. Not saying there’s any credence to shamanism or homeopathy, but there’s very little, if any, crossover between shamanism and hardcore Christianity.
And it’s people like you that leads to people attacking anyone who practices a spiritual practice
We’re not anti-vaxxers who refuse to see doctors as some people falsely beleive
So stop trying to associate them with us just because right wingers are trying to co-opt spirituality to promote their racist, bigoted, predujiced views and medical misinformation
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