I would argue very firmly that what they are doing is a breach of medical ethics. Not that such will ever lead to consequences.
Because when you interpret "low quality" results you need to consider whether you can even get your "gold standard" results. You consider the context and think of how each study updates your priors.
This is like… 5xx level experiment design, so it isn't like these people don't know this (I would hope), but they are choosing to mislead people.