It’s not just the drug companies that are faking their results, so are the lifestyle interventionists such as the mindfulness researchers etc. It’s rampant everywhere.
When it comes to advancing one’s career as a scientist honesty doesn’t get you very far. Even honest results are difficult to replicate and even if everyone played it straight the data would still be all over the place and contradictory.
The scientific method entails changing one variable only and then observing the outcome, but if the patient has a dozen things wrong with them and they also have 10 bad lifestyle habits then changing just one variable won’t produce much of a result.
My dad used to be a scientist in China. They do a lot of copying foreign research, he says, and turning it in as their own.
My university online account got hacked by someone in China and they downloaded thousands of articles.
Just remember most “research” in the states is funded by big money.