Chance News (September-October 2005)

Why Medical Studies are Often Wrong

Why medical studies are often wrong; John Allen Paulos explains how bad math haunts heath research
Who's Counting, ABCNews.com, 7 August 2005

In this installment of his online column, Paulos discusses a recent JAMA article about contradictions in health research ( John P. A. Ioannidis, J.P.A. Contradicted and initially stronger effects in highly cited clinical research. JAMA, July14, 2005; 294:218-228 ). You can find an abstract of the study here.

The JAMA article followed up on 45 studies that appeared in JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Lancet over the years 1990-2003. All led to widely publicized claims of positive effects for some medical treatment (hormone replacement therapy for post-menopausal women is a prominent example). For seven of these studies, later research contradicted the original claims; for seven others, later research found the benefits to be substantially smaller than originally stated. Popular news accounts of these findings announced that one third of medical studies are wrong!

Do Car Seats Really Work?

Freakonomics: the seat-belt solution
New York Times, 10 July 2005,
Steven J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt

Dubner and Levitt are the authors of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explains the Hidden Side of Everything (HarperCollins, 2005), which raises a host of provocative questions, including "Why do drug dealers still live with their mothers?" and "What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?"

In the present article, the authors challenge the conventional wisdom on car seats.