I agree - in cases like this patents are a large part of the motivation behind studying the thing in question, if they didn't have patents they wouldn't do the

I agree - in cases like this patents are a large part of the motivation behind studying the thing in question, if they didn't have patents they wouldn't do the research. It's up to peer review and replication studies to confirm any effects. Even if there weren't any credibility issues with a piece of research this would be true.