A rising number of peer-reviewed articles later are being retracted, raising the question of whether science and medical journals have any responsibility for what they publish. Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act is the regulatory law that shields platforms, like Facebook, from what individuals say on their platforms, even though the platforms profit from the content provided by those individuals: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." All the profit and none of the liability.
Meanwhile, medical journals are allegedly reporting peer-reviewed scientific studies. In 1998, Lancet published Dr. Wakefield on the relationship between autism and MMR vaccines. Twelve years after its publication (six years if you count the initial withdrawal of the conclusions by ten of the twelve authors), the Lancet finally retracted the article stating "that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were "consecutively referred" and that investigations were "approved" by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false."
Lancet's editor in chief was Richard Horton. Horton and Wakefield had been colleagues at the Royal Free Hospital After the study appeared, Horton expressed no regrets about publishing it. ... "Progress in medicine depends on the free expression of new ideas," he wrote in a book about medical decision-making, in 2003. No explanation about how the paper survived in-house and Lancet peer reviews.
Scientists have written to discuss the difficulties with peer-review, which can be pal review, excluding minority views. Journal publication is a large, global business. Elsevier had $9.8 billion U.S. revenues in 2019, and a gross profit margin of 34% for their parent company. If a fraction of that gross profit, perhaps 1%, or $3.3 million, could be used to pay for peer-review, the journals might have a better quality product. The "best" medical journals are acting more like social media platforms, protected by Section 230 of the Telecommunications act, than as trustworthy sources of research and clinical information.
An interesting website on this subject:
www.retractionwatch.com