Negligence hurts people. In this case it hurts people at the margin, where nutritional advice from misinformed doctors tips the scales. Yet while negligence in surgery is a PR nightmare, there is still a net benefit of prestige to having papers published, read and referenced even when it can be shown that the research is flawed. If only negligent publications came with a commensurate penalty to the credibility of the author and journal, even if only until they published a suitable retraction.
You seem to have a mild case of pushbutton statistics
Negligence hurts people. In this case it hurts people at the margin, where nutritional advice from misinformed doctors tips the scales. Yet while negligence in surgery is a PR nightmare, there is still a net benefit of prestige to having papers published, read and referenced even when it can be shown that the research is flawed. If only negligent publications came with a commensurate penalty to the credibility of the author and journal, even if only until they published a suitable retraction.