Results for: publication bias

Do Antidepressants Work? The Effect of Publication Bias

A recent meta-analysis of the most commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs raises some very important questions for science-based medicine. The study: Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration, was conducted by Irving Kirsch and colleagues, who reviewed clinical trials of six antidepressants (fluoxetine, venlafaxine, nefazodone, paroxetine, sertraline, and citalopram). They looked at all studies...

/ March 12, 2008

Annals of Questionable Evidence: a new study reveals substantial publication bias in trials of anti-depressants

Part IV of the ongoing Homeopathy series will have to wait a day or two, because it is superceded by a recent, comment-worthy publication. Nevertheless, “H series” fans will find here a bit of grist for that mill, too. An important role for this blog is to discuss problems of interpreting data from clinical studies. Academic medicine has committed itself, on the...

/ January 25, 2008

Bias and Spin: Acupuncture and Chiropractic

We all construct our narrative based on our biases and spin the facts so that the narrative confirms our biases. Among other characteristics, what separates an SBM provider from a SCAM provider is realizing that biases are always active and apply to me as well as everyone else. My biases are simple: I am skeptical that humans can reliably understand reality without...

/ March 6, 2015

Plausibility bias? You say that as though that were a bad thing!

On Friday, you might have noticed that Mark Crislip hinted at a foreshadowing of a blog post to come. This is that blog post. He knew it was coming because when I saw the article that inspired it, I sent an e-mail to my fellow bloggers marking out my territory like a dog peeing on every tree or protecting my newfound topic...

/ May 7, 2012

HPV vaccination misinformation and bias in Medscape

Like many physicians, I often peruse Medscape. It’s generally been a convenient and quick way to catch up on what’s going on in my field not directly related to my research, for which I tend to rely on pre-configured RSS feeds for PubMed searches to highlight any articles related to my areas of interest. Since these searches routinely flag hundreds of articles...

/ August 4, 2008

Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews of Acupuncture

No surprise - there is precious little evidence that acupuncture does anything.

/ December 14, 2022

Acupuncture For Backpain in Pregnancy – More Terrible Reporting

Another meta-analysis shows that acupuncture is nothing but an elaborate placebo, and again is misrepresented in the press.

/ November 23, 2022

Risk of Myocarditis Following COVID-19 Vaccine

Risk of myocarditis following mRNA vaccines is real but tiny, and far outweighed by the benefit of vaccines.

/ November 2, 2022
NRLM results

Some Sepsis Stuff

Sepsis interventions. Some don't work and some don't work.

/ October 20, 2022
Acupuncture

But Is It Real?

Why we need more science in medicine.

/ September 7, 2022