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M Makous's avatar

Here's another obvious point, but still worth mentioning: selection/publication bias shapes a narrative that promotes the vested interest, but deviates from reality. E.g. A drug company funds two studies: one shows benefit, one doesn't. Guess which one the company's researchers submit for publication. Same holds for journal editors.

The CDC cherry picks studies -- most using dismal methodology -- that support a narrative such as the putative benefits of mask wearing to prevent covid or the supposed benefits of Paxlovid. Very, very often industry-sponsored studies use statistical tricks to hide the untoward effects of a drug or device to create an illusion that the risk/benefit of their drug/device is favorable. Or they simply ignore untoward effects altogether.

The examples of flawed studies and manipulated data are too numerous to count. A prudent medical professional should retain extreme skepticism.

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el gato malo's avatar

this is a strong take and one with which i very much agree.

"lying with meta studies" has become something of an art form and the selective assembly of poor and mediocre data gets used to swamp the good data.

it's the equivalent of badly balancing cohorts in CT and them trying to back out bias at the end with some sort of cox model.

your study is not longer a study. it's not only as good as its modeling parameters.

what you want is the best overall study done sufficiently soundly that adjustment is not needed.

that and only that is data.

the rest is estimation and skullduggery.

been seeing A LOT of this in epidemiology. they seem to use statistical tool predominantly to occulde and not to reveal.

feels like a badly broken field.

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