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My brother works at a healthcare facility that recently unveiled a bunch of new, time-consuming, and complicated procedures for sterilizing equipment.

The equipment techs have been complaining because the procedures are, in their opinion, stupid.

The organization they work for cited a research paper that said these procedures reduce infection rates.

My brother, however, has a science background, and knows how to read a peer-reviewed paper.

He found the paper they cited, and it does say that these procedures will reduce infection rates, and it cites another paper as its source for that.

He found that paper and read it. It cites another paper in making that claim.

He found that paper. It had cited a previous paper. So he found that one.

He traced this claim all the way back to its original paper, which doesn't even make that claim. These procedures were just mentioned in the paper as something that *could* possibly reduce infections, but as something that would need to be tested to know for sure.

They weren't tested. A series of authors just kept citing the author before them, each making the claim a little more firmly until it was stated as a proven fact.