I suspect it’s the journalism step that introduces the error you’re objecting to. Proper scientists* will report their findings and methods. Journalists will tend to write the “Doing X leads to Y in humans” headlines.

Many times the first or first few teams won’t know what the confounding variables are and subsequent research is needed to find them. They should still report their initial “hmm, that’s novel” findings even if it later turns out that it’s explained by confounding variables.

*-No true Scotsman