The zombie hunter’s guide: How to track down the junk research infecting clinical guidelines
Professor Ben Mol cuts through the horde of junk research papers.
Professor Ben Mol does not look like a professional zombie hunter.
No blood stains on his shirt, definitely no firearms. Instead, his weaponry includes Excel spreadsheets and emails.
His target? The horde of junk research papers, usually retracted because of a glaring flaw in their premise, methodology or results — or because the datasets on which they are based are fabricated.
They are called zombies because they continue to be cited in research as if they were still living, valid science.
