8 ms·

> The results, published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Global Health, were so strong that independent experts monitoring the study recommended stopping it ear

> The results, published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Global Health, were so strong that independent experts monitoring the study recommended stopping it early because the results were clear.

nottorp 5y ago
I'd like some info about those "independent experts".
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Yeah, I only trust experts employed by the manufacturers of new, expensive, patented medication with severely limited availability!
  - nottorp 5y ago
    I only trust experts that are specified, not nebulous "independent experts" :)
darkerside 5y ago
This sounds suspiciously vague. What experts? How did they become involved? Did they stop it because the study proved an effect, or because it was clearly not designed to be able to prove an effect?
- _3u10 5y ago
  How does your ad hominem questioning of their expertise / how they became involved invalidate the results? The study reached its statistical significance goal, and thus the study was ended as it would be immoral beyond that point to continue to give people placebos when they knew the drug was working. I'd suggest reading up on the Tuskegee syphilis study for the ethics behind why studies are ended early once treatments have been statistically validated.
darkerside 5y ago
> When the DSMC met on Aug 5, 2021, it recommended that the TOGETHER trial stop randomly assigning patients to the fluvoxamine group, as this comparison had met the prespecified superiority criterion for the primary endpoint (prespecified superiority threshold 97·6%). This... is not how it's supposed to work.
- _3u10 5y ago
  Perhaps they were more interested in saving people's lives than waiting for the trial to conclude... I mean the downside is people are less depressed while on a ventilator.
  - ARandomerDude 5y ago
    No. It's called p-hacking, and it's a sleazy way to get published. https://youtu.be/42QuXLucH3Q https://youtu.be/42QuXLucH3Q
    - bpodgursky 5y ago
      This is not p-hacking. p-hacking is when you don't pre-register your hypothesis and you hunt for ones which hit .05 after the fact. There was a single hypothesis being tested here.
      - scotty79 5y ago
        Also this was >0.60 not around 0.05 If I read correctly.
      - darkerside 5y ago
        It was an adaptive clinical trial with multiple arms, so it wasn't a single hypothesis. Apparently this is considered legitimate in medical trials, but I have some reservations about the concept.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > Perhaps they were more interested in saving people's lives than waiting for the trial to conclude... The bit "waiting for the trial to conclude" actually means "determine if the drug actually has any effect or not". No matter how much you are interested in saving people's lives, or any other moralistic fallacy that might pop up, you can only help them if you give them treatments that actually work. Cutting short a study is falling short of the most basic requirement to meet that goal.

> The results, published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Global Health, were so strong that independent experts monitoring the study recommended stopping it early because the results were clear.

nottorp 5y ago

I'd like some info about those "independent experts".

tinus_hn 5y ago
Yeah, I only trust experts employed by the manufacturers of new, expensive, patented medication with severely limited availability!
- nottorp 5y ago
  I only trust experts that are specified, not nebulous "independent experts" :)

darkerside 5y ago

This sounds suspiciously vague. What experts? How did they become involved? Did they stop it because the study proved an effect, or because it was clearly not designed to be able to prove an effect?

_3u10 5y ago
How does your ad hominem questioning of their expertise / how they became involved invalidate the results? The study reached its statistical significance goal, and thus the study was ended as it would be immoral beyond that point to continue to give people placebos when they knew the drug was working. I'd suggest reading up on the Tuskegee syphilis study for the ethics behind why studies are ended early once treatments have been statistically validated.

darkerside 5y ago

> When the DSMC met on Aug 5, 2021, it recommended that the TOGETHER trial stop randomly assigning patients to the fluvoxamine group, as this comparison had met the prespecified superiority criterion for the primary endpoint (prespecified superiority threshold 97·6%). This... is not how it's supposed to work.

_3u10 5y ago
Perhaps they were more interested in saving people's lives than waiting for the trial to conclude... I mean the downside is people are less depressed while on a ventilator.
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  No. It's called p-hacking, and it's a sleazy way to get published. https://youtu.be/42QuXLucH3Q https://youtu.be/42QuXLucH3Q
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    This is not p-hacking. p-hacking is when you don't pre-register your hypothesis and you hunt for ones which hit .05 after the fact. There was a single hypothesis being tested here.
    - scotty79 5y ago
      Also this was >0.60 not around 0.05 If I read correctly.
    - darkerside 5y ago
      It was an adaptive clinical trial with multiple arms, so it wasn't a single hypothesis. Apparently this is considered legitimate in medical trials, but I have some reservations about the concept.
- nuerow 5y ago
  > Perhaps they were more interested in saving people's lives than waiting for the trial to conclude... The bit "waiting for the trial to conclude" actually means "determine if the drug actually has any effect or not". No matter how much you are interested in saving people's lives, or any other moralistic fallacy that might pop up, you can only help them if you give them treatments that actually work. Cutting short a study is falling short of the most basic requirement to meet that goal.