5 ms·
I think the criticism in this thread and elsewhere is a bit too harsh. It’s by no means a perfect study, nor the last word, but hopefully will motivate further
by tbenst 6y ago
I think the criticism in this thread and elsewhere is a bit too harsh. It’s by no means a perfect study, nor the last word, but hopefully will motivate further studies.
I volunteered on this study and talked with hundreds of the participants, at least 200 and possibly as many as 400. Two reported previous COVID symptoms, unprompted.
The bigger problem was socioeconomic bias. Judging from number of Tesla’s, Audi’s, and Lamborghis, we also skewed affluent. Against the study instructions, several participants (driving the nicest cars I might add) registered both adults and tested two children. In general, these zip codes had a lower rate of infection. It’s very hard to understand which way this study is biased, and a recruiting strategy based on grocery stores might be more effective, but difficult to get zip code balance
There has been additional validation since this preprint was posted and now there’s 118 known-negative samples that have been tested. Specificity remains at 100% for these samples. An updated version will be up soon on medrxiv.
- jariel 6y ago"The bigger problem was" ... conflict of interest.
- tbenst 6y agoThis strikes me as classic, Reddit-style conspiracy theory. I have no idea who Andrew Bogan is, but he didn’t play a major role in the execution of the study. I’m sure on the paper’s published the contribution section will specify what he did. Remember: this is a preprint!
- tempsy 6y agoI hate that the word “conspiracy” is now lobbed at others to immediately invalidate what they have to say, even with evidence. Did you skim through Bogan’s op-ed? He references the study without ever mentioning once that he played a role in it (no matter how small it was). You don’t need a tin foil hat to ask yourself what incentives a hedge fund manager would have in downplaying the severity of the virus by participating in the creation and media distribution of a study that does exactly that.
- tbenst 6y agoWe all gain more insight by discussing the study’s or analysis’s flaws, and improving future studies. I learned nothing of interest scientifically from the discussion of Bogan. Attack the substance, not the author.
- tempsy 6y agoThe author provides an insight into the motive for the study. If these authors decided to come together to do this study with the intention of downplaying the lethality of the virus then it poses a very serious ethics violation. Stanford should investigate.
- mieses 6y agoIs it wrong to have a theory that the virus is less lethal than widely assumed and to investigate this theory? Are scientists not allowed to investigate theories that are contrary to dominant political or religious dogma? What if they end up being right?
- zby 6y agoIt is polluting the info-sphere - because people expect it to mean much more than it actually does. If the newspaper articles mentioned that the result has like 90% chance of being just a random fluke [1] - then nobody would care to read them. 1. It is of course much more complex it has 90% probability in the high end of the Confidence Interval. After some more thinking - I have made here a similar manipulation to the authors - they take the low end of CI - I take the high end. The study does have some information value - but it is way overstated in the media - and that requires a correction.
- fhnuzoag 6y agoThey need to test 500+ known-negative samples without a false negative to negate the specificity issue.