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Blood Transfusion from Ever-Pregnant Females Associated with Mortality in Males
- upper98 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging
- rcthompson 9y agoI have to agree. The lower end of the 95% confidence interval on the hazard ratio is 1.01, which means this result is just barely significant at a p-value of 0.05. (The null hypothesis is a hazard ratio of 1.) After any kind of multiple testing correction, this result is not significant.
- dotancohen 9y agoI'm sure that we'll discover many new things to study with proper dredging. In fact under some conditions it is called Unsupervised Machine Learning and viewed in a positive light. However, as stated, these findings could be used to form hypothesis and then to study them. These findings are _not_ conclusions. Of course, Randal Munroe says it better than I could: https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/
- okket 9y agoTo be fair, the authors are open about the shortcomings: > further research is needed to replicate these findings, determine their significance, and define the underlying mechanism.
- rcthompson 9y agoI don't know that the level of significance reported in the paper even justifies further research.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> To be fair, this is more or less "boiler-plate text" added at the end of every research paper There is usually something discussing future research needs, but it's not always oriented toward “replicate and determine significance”. Though something very much like the note on my this paper is common, for good reason, on papers reporting a novel, borderline significant association with no clear mechanism.
- jaclaz 9y ago>To be fair, the authors are open about the shortcomings: >> further research is needed to replicate these findings, determine their significance, and define the underlying mechanism. To be fair, this is more or less "boiler-plate text" added at the end of every research paper, sometimes I would like to see a research paper that ends with "... and that's all about it".
- sxates 9y agoSo there really is something about the blood of virgins?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- BDGC 9y agoI hate to break it to you, but never pregnant != virgin
- Zarathust 9y agoNever pregnant is a superset of virgin. According to most
- rabboRubble 9y agoWelllll....take a gold star lesbian. She is technically a virgin if you measure virginity by penis-in-vagina sex. She still can become pregnant through artificial insemination. Plus the Virgin Mary!
- Mz 9y agoDon't forget Schmi Skywalker. ;-)
- arikr 9y agoTheir comment seemed to be partially in jest... I don't imagine they believe never pregnant = virgin.
- jaclaz 9y agoOr maybe only very pragmatic, how would you make sure - should you want to procure never-pregnant female blood - to select the right donours?
- autokad 9y agoNot completely surprised. not exactly the same, but in rats young blood makes older rats more healthy and the younger ones less so due to stem cells: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/science/young-blood-may-hold-key-to-reversing-aging.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/science/young-blood-may-h... (making the assumption more pregnancies = higher age)
- Kevguy 9y agoIf it was related to higher age, wouldn't blood donations from older males also be problematic?
- nkrumm 9y agoThis is an interesting study, and I highly encourage everyone to also read the accompanying editorial, which raises some important methodological shortcomings. See here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2657356 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2657356 The reason this study was done because there has been a very well replicated association between the plasma (not red cells) donated from previously pregnant women and the risk of TRALI, a very rare but deadly transfusion reaction. After this association was made clear, blood banks no longer collect plasma from previously pregnant ("ever pregnant") women, and the overall rate of TRALI has dramatically dropped (from about 35 fatalities in the US per year to ~15). Source: MD/lab medicine resident
- wnissen 9y agoDo you have any insight into why, when they were looking at men vs. two types of women, 88% of the blood donors were men? Seems like you would want at least 50% women.
- salad77 9y agoI don't think an ethics committee would approve of exposing a study group to a known or suspected higher risk of death without significant safeguards. Using a small sample exposed to the suspected risk and the vast majority not exposed sounds like responsible ethics. It is not stated, but there should also have been additional safeguards and monitoring. It is normal for studies to be terminated early if they are found to expose participants to either too much danger or if the study group is found to be significantly advantaged (in which case, for example, the whole group is given the beneficial treatment instead of just the small study group). 50% may sound 'fair' or 'equal', but this is about researching ways of saving life, some social notion of fairness or gender equality is not relevant and, if this study is correct, could have caused excessive death. Is it worth people being killed to get the gender balance into the shape you prefer?
- ThatGeoGuy 9y ago> Is it worth people being killed to get the gender balance into the shape you prefer? This is obviously a tough question to answer, and maybe the answer here is no. Further, I wouldn't say "worth people being killed" as much as I'd say it's "worth risking people dying". Obviously this is context sensitive and is different for each treatment and study. Despite this, as the devils advocate, you could say that given that men and women can respond to different treatments in a range of ways, the ideal distribution would be diverse enough to accommodate for those differences, which would provide a better statistical subset and by extension producing "better" data. Same caveats apply, where you mentioned "too much danger" and if the study is "significantly advantaged". In short, it could be less about fairness (equity) or equality and more about collecting a broader or more diverse range of data.
- crb002 9y agoShould be able to detect some rogue protien.
- Mz 9y agoAs a guess, a follow up study should maybe consider that chimerism is a factor. IIRC, a woman remains a chimera for about 27 (or 27.5?) years after giving birth (ie her blood contains DNA from the child she carried). So, you could look at data for female blood donors whose last pregnancy was more than 27 years ago and those whose last pregnancy was less than 27 years ago.
- rabboRubble 9y agoI wonder if that data is even captured in the donation process? Aren’t donations pooled? Can’t imagine this would leave very many pools without a single ever-pregnant donor.
- Mz 9y agoYa got me. I don't know much about blood donation. I'm just a mom who has reason to be curious about medical side effects of having had children.
- dogma1138 9y agoAs far as I know only Plasma doses are pooled because of the washing process. Pooling is also done for blood testing they’ll pool samples from a batch together and if the pooled sample comes back positive they’ll discard the entire batch of part of it if subpooling was used. Red blood cells doses come from a single donor. I’m not sure about platelets.
- jessriedel 9y agoThere is no way that the number of years fetal DNA remains in a mother's system is precise to 3 significant figures.
- Mz 9y agoI am on my phone. This is my source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8155613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8155613 Though searching suggests, no, they probably don't have that figure locked down.
- jwilk 9y agoPlease use the original title.
- dtparr 9y agoI tried to, but the original title "Association of Blood Transfusion From Female Donors With and Without a History of Pregnancy With Mortality Among Male and Female Transfusion Recipients" was approximately double the maximum length allowed by HN. I actually spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out the smallest change that was still grammatically correct and fit the 80 char limit while being as accurate as possible. That being said, if you have an improved version that fits, I'd be happy to support that.
- jasonkostempski 9y agoI only opened this because I thought "Ever-Pregnant" meant never not pregnant.