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Specific guide to this web site for:


 1.  Medical School
      Educators 
      in Statistics


 2.  Medical Students

 3.  Science media writers

 4.  High School & College
     Statistic Teachers


   Misadventures:


1. Harvard led MI study

2. JACC study 

   (J. of Amer. Coll.
   Cardio.)


3. NEJM cath study

4. Amer. J. of Cardio.
    review of literature

5.
ALLHAT
    controversy
 

6.
Oat bran study

7.
Pregnancy & Alcohol

8.
Are Geminis really
   
different?
      
9. Columbia 'Miracle' Study  
                                                 

Additional Topics:

Celebrex

Limitations of Meta-Analyses

Large Randomized Clinical Trials

Tale of Two Large
Trials

Advocate meta-analyses

Network meta-analyses






 

 

 

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"Subsequent Developments" regarding incorrect review of literature regarding dosage of aspirin required for patients presenting with a threatened heart attack 

This concerned an article which incorrectly reviewed literature and suggested because of that poorly done review that a single dose of low dose aspirin gave the full antiplatelet effects of aspirin. 

This article had no significant impact on subsequent medical literature or practice. The authors of this study correctly and conservatively advocated further study of this prior to enacting this erroneous conclusion into patient care. A letter to the editor was published by the editors of the American Journal of Cardiology detailing the incorrect review of literature and showing how a single low dose of aspirin does not give the full effects of aspirin. There was no subsequent publication by the original authors supporting the initial erroneous viewpoint. 

Regardless of any letters written, this research involved an important enough area that multiple additional studies would have been performed that ultimately would have shown the conclusions of the  initial study to be incorrect..  Hence, because of the experimental nature of much of the medical literature, errors are often corrected. The beauty of basic research is that reproducible studies are relatively easily performed to retest a conclusion.  

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