In a response printed in the journal
JAMA Internal Medicine
, Dr. Craig Garmendia, recent graduate from FIU’s Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work; and Dr. Purnima Madhivanan, associate professor of Epidemiology at the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work, recommend there be guidance in the research community that would require researchers to periodically update meta-analysis results, particularly to verify when research has been altered or retracted.
“Falsified and retracted data have a lasting effect on the medical literature. More must be done by all individuals in the research community to correct, and more importantly prevent, the publication of invalid data” said Garmendia, who graduated from Stempel College with a Ph.D. in Public Health - Epidemiology in 2018 and is currently working as a dedicated foreign investigator at the U.S Food & Drug Administration.
The response is a result of debate that resulted from Garmendia and colleagues recent study, “ Evaluation of the inclusion of studies identified by the FDA as having falsified data in the results of meta-analyses ,” which was published in JAMA Internal Medicine in March 2019 and is heavily based on Garmendia’s doctoral dissertation research.
“Clinical trial stakeholders, including research institutions, currently are reaping the benefits of published research but seem to fail at taking responsibility when research misconduct occurs.”
Since its publication, the article has received a lot of attention throughout the research community with a current Altmetric Attention Score of 755, placing it in the top 5 percent of all research outputs scored by Altmetric.