Paul Glaziou

Over a decade ago, we calculated that 85% of research is wasted because of the questions asked or serious flaws in the design of the research or the conduct of the research, that a lot of research, about half of it, never gets published.

And even the half that is published is so poorly reported that people can neither replicate it nor really apply it well.

And all of those things add up.

Some of those things have improved with the coronavirus research, like the non-publication because of the number of preprints that are going up.

But some problems have increased.

So I think we've seen misallocation of funding, the wrong questions being addressed.

We've seen lots of flawed research, often getting media attention.

And we've also seen very poor reporting

We've been working on the rate of asymptomatic cases.

One example of that, an early example of showing asymptomatic transmission, it turns out that the investigators didn't actually talk to the patient who was supposed to be asymptomatic.

This was a case in Germany.

And it turns out that she probably did have symptoms.

So that's an example of the sort of rushed research process.

But we've also been doing a systematic review of these and largely on the preprints.

I've never done this before.

And the preprints are often so poorly reported that it's difficult to even tell whether you can include them in the review.

Well, so for us, for this particular case, the use of a reporting guideline in the preprints would have been useful.

But I don't think there are any easy solutions to all of this.

It's just a consequence of the breathtaking speed that we've been seeing, which is important, but is also causing problems and miscommunication, I think, about what research is showing.

So I think the international response has been good, but I agree there has been a lack of coordination.