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The study revealed that only 42/100 from the group who used antibacterial hand gel contracted rhinovirus infections vs 51/100 for the control group. Similarly,
by byoung2 16y ago
The study revealed that only 42/100 from the group who used antibacterial hand gel contracted rhinovirus infections vs 51/100 for the control group. Similarly, 12 from the experimental group got swine flu vs 15 in the control group. Wouldn't that suggest that the antibacterial hand gel had a measurable, albeit small, effect?
- btilly 16y agoNot exactly. The headline is a classic example of how people misinterpret "insufficient data to disprove the null hypothesis" as "evidence for the null hypothesis". The truth is that from the data presented, we can't say much that is statistically useful. They didn't measure an effect, and didn't disprove it either. The one thing we learned is that the hand gel doesn't give an overwhelming benefit. However if they had followed 2 groups of 500 people and had a similar success rate, they would have had overwhelming evidence that the gel helped a bit. Or it they followed 2 groups of 500 people, they might have found a smaller difference, and we could have this conversation again only with a smaller possible effect and more data collected.