alt Hacker NewsThis is a federally funded study. Says so in the bright yellow “Key takeaways” box at the top of TFA.
But ok, sure, drug companies bad. Man hn is really turning into Reddit these days.
This is a federally funded study. Says so in the bright yellow “Key takeaways” box at the top of TFA.
But ok, sure, drug companies bad. Man hn is really turning into Reddit these days.
Dude. From the paper itself:
"Competing interests G.A.M. serves as a research consultant for Merck, GlaxoSmithKline/ViiV, and Gilead. M.J.C. serves as a scientific advisor for TruDiagnostic. V.D. and R.S. are employees of TruDiagnostic. All other authors declare no competing interests."
These are known risk factors. I've never said drug companies are bad. I literally take corporate funding for my own research. But you also don't get to stick your head in the sand and ignore the competing interests that all make the research more likely to show favorable results. Again for those in the back: These results probably _are_ correct! But do they generalize? Will they hold up on replication with a larger population? Do they matter, or is the proxy they're measuring not actually relevant for long term things in humans? Dunno. That's the thing about a _statistical likelihood of bias_ -- you have no idea exactly how to apply it to a single paper other than to say "ok, known possibility of bias, interpret accordingly."