There is another study showing the results of health studies often are proven false. Medical studies with striking results often prove false
In a statistical analysis of nearly 230,000 trials compiled from a variety of disciplines, study results that claimed a “very large effect” rarely held up when other research teams tried to replicate them.
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The report should remind patients, physicians and policymakers not to give too much credence to small, early studies that show huge treatment effects, Ioannidis said.
The Stanford professor chose to publish this paper in a closed science publication. But previously he published openly on: Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.
Related: Majority of Clinical Trials Don’t Provide Meaningful Evidence – Statistical Errors in Medical Studies – Mistakes in Experimental Design and Interpretation – How to Deal with False Research Findings
We all have witnessed this in our personal lives. We buy medication based on medical studies which show that certain medicines prove to be the most effective whereas we don’t find any such results after trying the medicines. I believe this is a case of misselling, often customers are given wrong information to increase the sales of certain product.
I think the issue of researcher bias, which the linked article mentions, is particularly prevalent in medical research because of the financial incentives involved (compared with other types of research, I mean). By picking your samples carefully, and analyzing your results with a biased eye, you can prove whatever conclusion the drug company sponsoring the study wants you to prove…
I really feel bad about such practices. Medical profession is something we all depend upon, and in such a situation if people continue to see us as money bags then I think nothing is going to improve. I agree to Jeff, researching on a chosen unit and getting desired result will not help people by and large.
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Pharmaceutical firms exist to sell drugs. The best do everything they can within the law to make that happen. Not mentioned here is the fact that every drug has a number of side effects. In addition, every person’s body reacts differently to a drug. At this time the vast majority of drugs are given to you as an experiment by the doctor to see if it will help you because they don’t know if you are that 1 in a 100,000 that will react with a bad side effect. That’s why they call it a medical practice.
The good news is that genomic research will eventually allow doctor’s to make better decisions about drugs.
One of the biggest things to look at when comparing studies is to see who is funding them. Typically if you can find the money trail and who has an overall interest in the study, and verify that the results of the study match up with the goals or beliefs of the group the funds come from, then the results are a sham…