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A Study Evaluating Alcohol Ingestion, Smoking, And Pregnancy which Miscounts the Data Regarding the Study’s Primary Outcome Endpoint (The Number of Mothers with Low Birth Weight Infants.) 


A study was published in the Scandinavian Journal of OB/GYN.1  This study evaluated alcohol intake and birth rate and reported to show a significant increase in the incidence of low birth weight infants resulting from modest alcohol intake. 

However, on review of the data, it is evident that the primary end points of the study were miscounted for the nonsmoker group making the data set unreliable for interpretation. (Table A indicates that there are 446 low birth weight infants for the 5,400 nonsmokers, while Table B shows that there are 565 low birth weight infants for the same 5,400 group of nonsmokers.)  These numbers should be identical.   details 

The author made the grievous error of miscounting data points regarding the primary outcome, i.e. low birth weight infants, which the trial was evaluating.

The data, at least as presented in this study, is corrupt and can not be used reliably.  Hopefully, it is exceedingly rare that the studies that form our collective medical lore have their results tabulated in a manner similar to this one. 

1.Virji. Relationship between alcohol consumption during pregnancy and infant birth weight. Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand 1991; 70: 303-308  (This study originated from a Pennsylvania based epidemiology group.)

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