Tuesday Top of Mind 4/29/25- The U.S. is trying to control what kind of health research is published

I know, I know, there is too much bullshit out there to focus on one thing.

I get it.

The purpose of Tuesday Top of Mind is to write about what fresh horribleness is happening in the healthcare realm.

Today, I want to write about the fact that the U.S. government is trying to control what kind of health research is published.

It is done to control what information is out there and, by extension, the U.S. population.

You see, they want to keep us dumb and to not have any avenue to question what is published.

I know that I am fairly new to nursing research but I am not new to nursing.

It is shit like this that allows them to put their knee to the neck of publishers so that the publishers will cave.

It is the bully in the room who takes control of your arm, usually bruising it, and hits you with your own hand, all the while asking “Why are you hitting yourself?” Dude, you are puppeting me and making me hit myself.

It is the bully in the room that has no intellectual curiosity and hates those of us who do.

It is the bully in the room that wants to bend all of science and academia to their will to declare the sky is green with screaming red polka dots and they’re just trying to protect you, boo.

All that they are asking about, if there is room for competing viewpoints, or does the articles get reviewed by lay people, and are the researchers transparent about who is funding them, makes me roll my eyes so hard I can see into last week. The kicker is what if the researcher got it wrong, what then?

They are definitely giving off “i’ve never read a journal article except for once and in that journal article there were no pictures so I didn’t understand it and it made my head hurt” vibes.

Yes, there are seldom pictures.

Yes, the researchers are upfront about each funding source. It is mandatory.

If the researcher came to the wrong conclusion they print a retraction. Like the retraction that the Lancet made for Andrew Wakefield about his flawed, doubly flawed, study of 12 cherry picked children that he said proved a vaccine link to autism. Bitch it did not.

Too late, that damage had already been done. We in healthcare deal with it every day.

Yes, competing viewpoints based in reality are welcome.

Oh, it’s the based in reality that you have a problem with?

I feel sorry for you.