This one is for poik – you will love this. A piece in BMJ Opinion at the beginning of this month:

Excerpt I picked out: “Later Roberts, who headed one of the Cochrane groups, did a systematic review of colloids versus crystalloids only to discover again that many of the trials that were included in the review could not be trusted. He is now sceptical about all systematic reviews, particularly those that are mostly reviews of multiple small trials. He compared the original idea of systematic reviews as searching for diamonds, knowledge that was available if brought together in systematic reviews; now he thinks of systematic reviewing as searching through rubbish. He proposed that small, single centre trials should be discarded, not combined in systematic reviews.”

REF: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/05/time-to-assume-that-health-research-is-fraudulent-until-proved-otherwise/

buffy said:

This one is for poik – you will love this. A piece in BMJ Opinion at the beginning of this month:

Excerpt I picked out: “Later Roberts, who headed one of the Cochrane groups, did a systematic review of colloids versus crystalloids only to discover again that many of the trials that were included in the review could not be trusted. He is now sceptical about all systematic reviews, particularly those that are mostly reviews of multiple small trials. He compared the original idea of systematic reviews as searching for diamonds, knowledge that was available if brought together in systematic reviews; now he thinks of systematic reviewing as searching through rubbish. He proposed that small, single centre trials should be discarded, not combined in systematic reviews.”

REF: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/05/time-to-assume-that-health-research-is-fraudulent-until-proved-otherwise/

LOL, but with a dangerous side.

“Roberts did a systematic review … thinks of systematic reviewing as searching through rubbish.”

Now there’s a self-destructive self-referencial statement if i ever saw one.

In the isotopes thread I quoted the systematic review by Seaborg et al. in 1944 and was delighted to see how Seaborg dealt with hundreds of “small, single centre trials” by giving each a quality rating.

Seaborg’s quality rating scheme went from A to G, with A being perfect and G being probably total rubbish. Some 68% of the “small, single centre trials” in Seaborg’s systematic review got a rating of A, some 7% of them got a B rating, and 25% have a rating of C or lower.

If Robbins had had the sense to do the same in his systematic review of colloids vs crystalloids then he would have ended up with a much better and more useful review.

imagine if reproducibility were part of scientific study

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

This one is for poik – you will love this. A piece in BMJ Opinion at the beginning of this month:

Excerpt I picked out: “Later Roberts, who headed one of the Cochrane groups, did a systematic review of colloids versus crystalloids only to discover again that many of the trials that were included in the review could not be trusted. He is now sceptical about all systematic reviews, particularly those that are mostly reviews of multiple small trials. He compared the original idea of systematic reviews as searching for diamonds, knowledge that was available if brought together in systematic reviews; now he thinks of systematic reviewing as searching through rubbish. He proposed that small, single centre trials should be discarded, not combined in systematic reviews.”

REF: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/05/time-to-assume-that-health-research-is-fraudulent-until-proved-otherwise/

LOL, but with a dangerous side.

“Roberts did a systematic review … thinks of systematic reviewing as searching through rubbish.”

Now there’s a self-destructive self-referencial statement if i ever saw one.

In the isotopes thread I quoted the systematic review by Seaborg et al. in 1944 and was delighted to see how Seaborg dealt with hundreds of “small, single centre trials” by giving each a quality rating.

Seaborg’s quality rating scheme went from A to G, with A being perfect and G being probably total rubbish. Some 68% of the “small, single centre trials” in Seaborg’s systematic review got a rating of A, some 7% of them got a B rating, and 25% have a rating of C or lower.

If Robbins had had the sense to do the same in his systematic review of colloids vs crystalloids then he would have ended up with a much better and more useful review.

Any chance of copying my above comment to the original bmj blog, buffy?

As a general rule, any paper that manages to hoop-jump it’s way into journals past that horror that is called “peer review” is valuable.

But I can think of three medical papers that are basically rubbish, all three touted a “cure for cancer” based on the recovery of a single individual, and were picked up and flaunted as medical miracles by the popular press.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

This one is for poik – you will love this. A piece in BMJ Opinion at the beginning of this month:

Excerpt I picked out: “Later Roberts, who headed one of the Cochrane groups, did a systematic review of colloids versus crystalloids only to discover again that many of the trials that were included in the review could not be trusted. He is now sceptical about all systematic reviews, particularly those that are mostly reviews of multiple small trials. He compared the original idea of systematic reviews as searching for diamonds, knowledge that was available if brought together in systematic reviews; now he thinks of systematic reviewing as searching through rubbish. He proposed that small, single centre trials should be discarded, not combined in systematic reviews.”

REF: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/05/time-to-assume-that-health-research-is-fraudulent-until-proved-otherwise/

LOL, but with a dangerous side.

“Roberts did a systematic review … thinks of systematic reviewing as searching through rubbish.”

Now there’s a self-destructive self-referencial statement if i ever saw one.

In the isotopes thread I quoted the systematic review by Seaborg et al. in 1944 and was delighted to see how Seaborg dealt with hundreds of “small, single centre trials” by giving each a quality rating.

Seaborg’s quality rating scheme went from A to G, with A being perfect and G being probably total rubbish. Some 68% of the “small, single centre trials” in Seaborg’s systematic review got a rating of A, some 7% of them got a B rating, and 25% have a rating of C or lower.

If Robbins had had the sense to do the same in his systematic review of colloids vs crystalloids then he would have ended up with a much better and more useful review.

Any chance of copying my above comment to the original bmj blog, buffy?

As a general rule, any paper that manages to hoop-jump it’s way into journals past that horror that is called “peer review” is valuable.

But I can think of three medical papers that are basically rubbish, all three touted a “cure for cancer” based on the recovery of a single individual, and were picked up and flaunted as medical miracles by the popular press.

I don’t know how that blog works. I followed a link to get there from somewhere else.

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

LOL, but with a dangerous side.

“Roberts did a systematic review … thinks of systematic reviewing as searching through rubbish.”

Now there’s a self-destructive self-referencial statement if i ever saw one.

In the isotopes thread I quoted the systematic review by Seaborg et al. in 1944 and was delighted to see how Seaborg dealt with hundreds of “small, single centre trials” by giving each a quality rating.

Seaborg’s quality rating scheme went from A to G, with A being perfect and G being probably total rubbish. Some 68% of the “small, single centre trials” in Seaborg’s systematic review got a rating of A, some 7% of them got a B rating, and 25% have a rating of C or lower.

If Robbins had had the sense to do the same in his systematic review of colloids vs crystalloids then he would have ended up with a much better and more useful review.

Any chance of copying my above comment to the original bmj blog, buffy?

As a general rule, any paper that manages to hoop-jump it’s way into journals past that horror that is called “peer review” is valuable.

But I can think of three medical papers that are basically rubbish, all three touted a “cure for cancer” based on the recovery of a single individual, and were picked up and flaunted as medical miracles by the popular press.

I don’t know how that blog works. I followed a link to get there from somewhere else.

Perhaps you could put it into the “comments”? At the bottom of the piece. I clicked on “join the discussion” and a box opened up. Don’t know where it goes from there, if you have to login or something.