The scramble to research the novel coronavirus has exposed weaknesses in the vetting of health care data being supplied by a growing number of U.S. firms, after a flaw forced two of the most respected medical journals to pull studies last week.
The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) retracted COVID-19 studies over questionable patient health data supplied by a small company called Surgisphere.
U.S. researchers say they are routinely peppered with pitches from similar firms, with no widespread standard of how to verify their datasets.