5 ms·

I am also skeptical of meta-analyses. I will re-post some thoughts I have previously shared from John P.A. Ioannidis who is a professor of medicine and thought

I am also skeptical of meta-analyses. I will re-post some thoughts I have previously shared from John P.A. Ioannidis who is a professor of medicine and thoughtful critic of medical research. He often raises good points about trends in research and research ethics. His view is that meta-analyses are mass produced, redundant, misleading, and conflicted [1]! One criticism of meta-analyses in [1], using anti-depressants as a case study: "the results of several meta‐analytic evaluations that addressed the effectiveness of and/or tolerability for diverse antidepressants showed that their ranking of antidepressants was markedly different. These studies had been conducted by some of the best meta‐analysts in the world, all of them researchers with major contributions in the methods of meta‐analysis and extremely experienced in its conduct. However, among 12 considered drugs, paroxetine ranked anywhere from first to tenth best and sertraline ranked anywhere from second to tenth best." I like this quote because it highlights the conflict of interest and misleading-ness(or at least reproducibility problems) with meta-analyses. Antidepressants have a huge amount of primary research dedicated to them. They also have the attention of researchers experienced in meta-analysis. Yet, meta-analyses do not agree with each other (and in fact they strongly disagree with each other). [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27620683/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27620683/

KennyBlanken 5y ago
> I will re-post some thoughts I have previously shared from John P.A. Ioannidis who is a professor of medicine and thoughtful critic of medical research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ioannidis#COVID-19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ioannidis#COVID-19 > In an editorial on STAT published March 17, 2020, Ioannidis called the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic a "once-in-a-century evidence fiasco" and wrote that lockdowns were likely an overreaction to unreliable data.[14] He estimated that the coronavirus could cause 10,000 U.S. deaths if it infected 1% of the U.S. population, and argued that more data was needed to determine if the virus would spread more.[28][5][14] The virus in fact eventually infected far more people, and would cause more than 600,000 deaths in the U.S.[29][28][5] Marc Lipsitch, Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, objected to Ioannidis's characterization of the global response in a reply that was published on STAT the next day after Ioannidis's.[30] > Ioannidis widely promoted a study of which he had been co-author, "COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California", released as a preprint on April 17, 2020. It asserted that Santa Clara County's number of infections was between 50 and 85 times higher than the official count, putting the virus's fatality rate as low as 0.1% to 0.2%.[n 1][32][29] Ioannidis concluded from the study that the coronavirus is "not the apocalyptic problem we thought".[33] The message found favor with right-wing media outlets, but the paper drew criticism from a number of epidemiologists who said its testing was inaccurate and its methods were sloppy. Okay then. Nothing like spending a career picking apart people's research and then generating absolutely garbage research outside your field of expertise, that is widely criticized by people who are actually the experts in that field...as being inaccurate and sloppy. COVID hit, dude went all Don Quixote seeing conspiracies everywhere, and then generated a paper that suited his personal biases...
- timr 5y ago
  Your comment is the worst kind of ad hominem. You're simply dismissing one of the most-cited scientists in the world because he wrote something you disagree with. He was right about the IFR for Covid-19, by the way. Subsequent research has upheld the finding. The primary factor that influences average IFR is the age of the population you're looking at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13554 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13554 > All systematic evaluations of seroprevalence data converge that SARS-CoV-2 infection is widely spread globally. Acknowledging residual uncertainties, the available evidence suggests average global IFR of ~0.15% and ~1.5-2.0 billion infections by February 2021 with substantial differences in IFR and in infection spread across continents, countries and locations. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 > The estimated age-specific IFR is very low for children and younger adults (e.g., 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at age 25) but increases progressively to 0.4% at age 55, 1.4% at age 65, 4.6% at age 75, and 15% at age 85. Moreover, our results indicate that about 90% of the variation in population IFR across geographical locations reflects differences in the age composition of the population and the extent to which relatively vulnerable age groups were exposed to the virus.
  - kennethh 5y ago
    Great with some links to information about the actual numbers of fatalities and age brackets. It is also interesting to note the effects of simple things like vitamin-d which reduce the death rate (and sickness impact) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567576921003222 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156757692... Diabetes and other lifestyle related illnesses also impact the death rate to a high degree.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    If you are worried about ad hominems then you should also be worried about Ioannidis, who has taken to Twitter to criticize grad students with orthodox conclusions about COVID for their physical appearance and lack of publications relative to full professors.
  - gilbetron 5y ago

KennyBlanken 5y ago

> I will re-post some thoughts I have previously shared from John P.A. Ioannidis who is a professor of medicine and thoughtful critic of medical research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ioannidis#COVID-19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ioannidis#COVID-19 > In an editorial on STAT published March 17, 2020, Ioannidis called the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic a "once-in-a-century evidence fiasco" and wrote that lockdowns were likely an overreaction to unreliable data.[14] He estimated that the coronavirus could cause 10,000 U.S. deaths if it infected 1% of the U.S. population, and argued that more data was needed to determine if the virus would spread more.[28][5][14] The virus in fact eventually infected far more people, and would cause more than 600,000 deaths in the U.S.[29][28][5] Marc Lipsitch, Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, objected to Ioannidis's characterization of the global response in a reply that was published on STAT the next day after Ioannidis's.[30] > Ioannidis widely promoted a study of which he had been co-author, "COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California", released as a preprint on April 17, 2020. It asserted that Santa Clara County's number of infections was between 50 and 85 times higher than the official count, putting the virus's fatality rate as low as 0.1% to 0.2%.[n 1][32][29] Ioannidis concluded from the study that the coronavirus is "not the apocalyptic problem we thought".[33] The message found favor with right-wing media outlets, but the paper drew criticism from a number of epidemiologists who said its testing was inaccurate and its methods were sloppy. Okay then. Nothing like spending a career picking apart people's research and then generating absolutely garbage research outside your field of expertise, that is widely criticized by people who are actually the experts in that field...as being inaccurate and sloppy. COVID hit, dude went all Don Quixote seeing conspiracies everywhere, and then generated a paper that suited his personal biases...

timr 5y ago
Your comment is the worst kind of ad hominem. You're simply dismissing one of the most-cited scientists in the world because he wrote something you disagree with. He was right about the IFR for Covid-19, by the way. Subsequent research has upheld the finding. The primary factor that influences average IFR is the age of the population you're looking at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13554 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13554 > All systematic evaluations of seroprevalence data converge that SARS-CoV-2 infection is widely spread globally. Acknowledging residual uncertainties, the available evidence suggests average global IFR of ~0.15% and ~1.5-2.0 billion infections by February 2021 with substantial differences in IFR and in infection spread across continents, countries and locations. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 > The estimated age-specific IFR is very low for children and younger adults (e.g., 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at age 25) but increases progressively to 0.4% at age 55, 1.4% at age 65, 4.6% at age 75, and 15% at age 85. Moreover, our results indicate that about 90% of the variation in population IFR across geographical locations reflects differences in the age composition of the population and the extent to which relatively vulnerable age groups were exposed to the virus.
- kennethh 5y ago
  Great with some links to information about the actual numbers of fatalities and age brackets. It is also interesting to note the effects of simple things like vitamin-d which reduce the death rate (and sickness impact) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567576921003222 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156757692... Diabetes and other lifestyle related illnesses also impact the death rate to a high degree.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  If you are worried about ad hominems then you should also be worried about Ioannidis, who has taken to Twitter to criticize grad students with orthodox conclusions about COVID for their physical appearance and lack of publications relative to full professors.
- gilbetron 5y ago