Expression of concern regarding the omission of prenatal alcohol exposure as a control variable.

1. Letter. Submitted to
MDedge Psychiatry
MDedge.com/Psychiatry ■ 15 ■ December 2019
The myth of peer review
I AM WRITING to draw attention to what ended up as the final column
written for Clinical Psychiatry
News by the late Dr. Carl C. Bell.
Dr. Bell’s article was on a topic about which he wrote prolifically,
particularly in recent years (“Fetal alcohol
exposure overlooked again? New study on large youth sample is well
done – with a glaring exception,”
Clinical Psychiatry News, August 2019, p. 6).
In the commentary, Dr. Bell drew attention to research papers that did
not control for fetal alcohol
exposure.
Such an omission, at the very least, raises doubts about the conclusions
of the papers quoted. The issue becomes even more apparent in cases in
which 1) the paper is a retrospective meta- analysis and 2) the papers
analyzed have themselves not controlled for prenatal alcohol.
Those kinds of omissions are in conflict with the stated aims of the peer
review process as outlined
by publishers such as Wiley in: “Spotting Potential Major Flaws:
Ignoring a process that is known to
have a strong influence on the area under study.”
However, the problem extends much further than the few papers quoted
in Dr. Bell’s commentary.
Indeed, this problem is one of enormous proportions and over many
years will have gross
economical and professional implications.
Barry Stanley, MBChB
Vernon, B.C.

2. The evidence seems to
to bang
themselves around
imitating big guys
seems reasonably safe.
At least as safe as what
kids used to do to each
other before we adults
invented television and
video games.