5/1/2023 0 Comments Vox nutrition research brokenWhen funding and pay structures are stacked against academic scientists, these problems are all exacerbated." -Alison Bernstein, postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience, Emory University Too many studies are poorly designed It creates greater conflicts of interest and bias that may lead to unintentional, or even intentional, research misconduct and contributes to the replication problem. This pressure to publish creates the demand that allows predatory journals to grow. "The pressure to publish is increased because of the requirement for professors to bring in ‘soft money’ to cover their own salary. It's also something of a lottery, and it's unfair since someone who wins the lottery once has a better chance of doing so again next time." -Paul Matthews, professor of applied mathematics, University of Nottingham "The current system of competitive application for funding means that a vast amount of time (and therefore money) is wasted by academics writing unsuccessful funding applications. Imagine how much more research we could get done if this time were halved." -Adrian Barnett, professor of public health, Queensland University of Technology the country's researchers collectively spend 600 years every year on lengthy applications, the majority of which are rejected. It's all kinds of vicious circles on top of each other." -Maximilian Press, graduate student in genome science, University of Washington. "Bitter competition leads to group leaders working desperately to get any money just to avoid closing their labs, submitting more proposals, overwhelming the grant system further. Short of that, food companies could pool their research funds and create an independent commission to issue requests for proposals and make funding decisions based on scientific merit." -Marion Nestle, food politics professor, New York University I'd like to see federal agencies increase their support for studies of nutrition and health. The frequent result? Conflicts of interest. With funding from NIH, USDA, and foundations so limited, pressures from FDA to provide research to back of health claims, and demands from universities for partnerships with industry, researchers feel obligated - or willingly seek - food industry support. "How about fixing the way food companies fund research in food and nutrition. As a bonus, here are some of our favorite responses to the survey. You can read all about what they told us - and how these problems in science can be fixed - in our feature. The 7 biggest problems facing science, according to 270 scientists
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