Intermountain hired 21 respected doctors part-time and an equal number of full-time nurses to act as peerreviewers for doctors at Intermountain's far-flung operations.
Readers of a paper (including the peerreviewers) have to trust that the researchers correctly converted raw data and experimental conditions to abbreviated formats.
In fact, there have been numerous analyses by other researchers that have examined this issue in peer reviewed papers, a fact apparently missed by both Benbrook and the peer-reviewers of his manuscript.
He cited flaws in the design of the study that render any conclusions meaningless and asked whether the study passed peer review due to incompetence of the reviewers and editors or due to conflicts-of-interest among the former.