A review in JAMA shows that journal article findings that a treatment worked were contradicted 16 percent of the time by later studies. And another 16 percent of the time, studies found weaker results than earlier suggested. So nearly a third of original published results did not hold up to further scrutiny.
Dartmouth and VA researchers Steve Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz have warned about news coverage that is “Too Much Too Soon” in coverage of presentations at scientific meetings.
For those journalists who live off weekly journals for their stories, and who fail to follow up on subsequent findings, the same “too much too soon” message is valid.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
The tale of two “negative” studies. Or, how spin is applied to make research findings look more impressive. A must read. https://johnmandrola.substack.com/p/the-tale-of-two-negative-studies
The @nytimes chose to interview one of the editors of the @AnnalsofIM (publisher of this paper) who "gushed with extraordinary glee: It’s huge! There are very few things that reduce your mortality by 30%."
Turns out coffee is not one of those few things despite all that glee. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1533202075928215558
Comments (2)
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Ira Allen
July 15, 2005 at 2:16 pmI was, frankly, surprised that 64% of studies had findings that were upheld!
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