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Thread: The State of Scientific research in India.
#GauMutra may well be worth study to determine its potential for health and other economic benefits. But if its worth doing at all it is worth doing the research properly, and to the highest standards. After all it's #GauMata.
#GauMutra may well be worth study to determine its potential for health and other economic benefits. But if its worth doing at all it is worth doing the research properly, and to the highest standards. After all it's #GauMata.
But here is one example of the utter rubbish that passes for scientific research on the value of #GauMutra (cow's urine). It was published in the International Journal of Green Pharmacy see pic 2. Download this paper if you want from: https://www.greenpharmacy.info/index.php/ijgp/article/download/115/158
This paper is methodologically so unspeakably bad that it could not be used in a class on research methods for students to critique in order to learn how NOT to do a scientific study. This remarkable assertion appears in the introduction section of the paper: See pic.
This was not a trial at all. It was a survey of a selection of patients with cancers of various organs. No mention of dose, in what formulation, what the outcome measures were, what was the hypothesised benefits. nothing. All we are told is the results were analysed intensively.
There are numerous charts showing the characteristics of the 63 patients. But not one chart showing how the #GauMutra patients differed from the rest. As far as I can tell they were all taking the foll medications. See pic.
The results section IN ITS TOTALITY comprises just one all-embracing sentence: "It was evaluated that patients who were receiving cow urine therapy since 2-3 months were most benefited. Hence, this traditional therapy is really a boon to cancer patients." That's it. End of.
No biomedical journal in the world would touch this paper for fear of becoming a laughing stock in the scientific community. But here is the secret, this journal is an in-house journal of the same department. Its a captive outlet for dubious poor quality research.
CONCLUSION. This is worse than scientific #Fraud. It's incompetence & ignorance on an unimaginably gargantuan scale. It gives Indian science a bad name. If scientists from other Institutes, @ICMRDELHI @CSIR_IND do not call out this type of research they too stand implicated.
