How often do you hear the newsreader say those words at the beginning of a news item? Researchers say a lot of things. Sometimes, there are great breakthroughs to tell us about, sometimes its a non-story, or a re-hashed story, an attempt to re-ignite awareness, all part of the games they play to get research projects funded.
I am quite often amazed that some of these projects are funded at all; surely studies into gorilla behaviour is not as important as research into cancer? Perhaps that's a bad example, as cancer research suffers no shortage of funding. OK, what about research announced today that there is a large shallow lake on Jupiter's moon? Certainly, this is interesting research but will it enhance human life on earth today?
I must declare a conflict of interest here. I am an out-of-work scientist. The project I was employed on was a large collaboration across Europe, looking for novel gene variants which could be shown to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, such as heart attack and stroke. The funding ended in September and there have been no new calls to fund this work. So, not only am I out of work, but three years of promising data from highly technical and skilled work will never find it's way to the public. And hearing the words 'researchers say' in relation to the prevention and cure of cardiovascular disease is a long way off.