Unfork Statistics

NHS population screening: information for trans and non-binary people

That's against NHS policy (assuming you're age 50-71): www.gov.uk/government/p...

Journals and publishers crack down on research from open health data sets PLOS, Frontiers, and others announce policies trying to stem the tide of suspect research

"Two major publishers have begun to automatically reject the vast majority of papers based on public health data sets, following revelations that unscrupulous actors use these data sets to churn out nonsense scientific papers."

www.science.org/content/arti...

AI-generated ‘participants’ can lead social science experiments astray, study finds Data produced by “silicon samples” depends on researchers’ exact choice of models, prompts, and settings

A lot of psych is already conducted with online convenience samples & ppl are probably excited about silicon samples bc it would allow them to crank out more studies for even less 💸

How about we reconsider the idea that sciencey science involves collecting own data.
www.science.org/content/arti...

AI-generated ‘participants’ can lead social science experiments astray, study finds Data produced by “silicon samples” depends on researchers’ exact choice of models, prompts, and settings

People are running stats on LLM-generated participants and think they’re being social scientists when in fact they’re technically just playing a very strange video game. This is like saying you’re doing math research because you’re playing sudoku.

www.science.org/content/arti...

I walk my dog by the river. Properly managed sewage systems are sexy. top-of-the-poops.org/waterway/uni...

This is a failure to explain herd immunity properly. Some parents hear only a demand that they vaccinate to protect others. But their (unvaccinated) kids are most likely to be harmed in an outbreak. It's their (unvaccinated) kids who pay the price of herd immunity breaking down. Spell it out.

Why the Senate's 'Most Important Vaccine Study Ever' Was Never Published The fatal flaws that made this study unpublishable

A US senate subcommittee was told this unpublished vaccine study was 'the most important ever.' Henry Ford Health now confirms why it was never published: it failed scientific standards.

Here's what's actually wrong with the study:
jakescottmd.substack.com/p/why-the-senates-most-important-vaccine

Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

This can't be true because academic papers are all peer-reviewed by experienced experts who would be able to easily identify these shenanigans and stop them in their tracks.

Screenshot of the CRAN Task View "Clinical Trial Design, Monitoring, and Analysis" at https://CRAN.R-project.org/view=ClinicalTrials

🚨 Relaunch of CRAN Task View: Clinical Trial Design, Monitoring, and Analysis
#rstats

Complete rewrite by an int'l team of experts in #clinicaltrials

Ya Wang, Thomas Jaki @thomasjaki.bsky.social, Laura Pascasio Harris, Orla Doyle, Elias Laurin Meyer, Wilmar Igl

cran.r-project.org/view=Clinica...

Nice example of the ecological fallacy, with a conclusion so absurd it's hard to understand how it got written down. #stats

Tackling paper mills requires us to prevent future contamination and clean up the past – the case of the journal Bioengineered Taylor & Francis journal Bioengineered has been targeted by paper mills. Our goal is to identify problematic articles published in Bioengineered during the period 2010 to 2024. Dimensions was used ...

Recent paper on paper mill activity in the Taylor & Francis journal 'Bioengineered', which we have published in Taylor & Francis journal 'Bioengineered'.

~25% of the investigated 878 papers were 'problematic'

Bioengineered has now halted submissions.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A new expression of concern was published on this randomized clinical trial of cinnamon for diabetes.

The study itself has been cited, according to Google, 1,700 times.

I first complained about it in 2023, so let me tell you the story of one of the most problematic papers I've come across 1/n

Is Khan 2010 the same Khan as Khan 2003? Do you have a link to the review?

Why scientists are rethinking the immune effects of SARS-CoV-2 “Immunity debt,” a theory to explain the global surge in non-covid infections since pandemic restrictions were lifted, is increasingly being challenged by emerging evidence. Nick Tsergas reports Myco...

Pretty striking for the BMJ to run this piece.

“[Immunity debt’s] explanatory power has faded as the number of non-covid infections has kept rising each year.”

It really is quite stark, mapped out like this. (Assuming the underlying data is correct, I can't vouch for it but it smells right.)

I spent a lot of time recently on another example of this phenomenon. Back in May, the BMJ ran an online opinion piece by Alastair Miller and colleagues arguing that even people with severe ME/CFS can recover if they are guided down a path that begins with “reframing beliefs about illness.” That theory of ME/CFS – that the mind is central to overcoming the condition – persists in large part due to sustained promotion like this. It comes, as these things tend to do, with a lot of references that gives an impression of solidity. Readers ordinarily don’t have time to do anything other than take all that at face value. This time, I decided to go systematically down the rabbit hole of citations, to understand the the links in the chain of theory that leads to telling people they are, in effect, responsible for their own suffering. I’ve been involved for years now with the evidence of how poorly these theories work in practice. I should not have been surprised that the theories don’t work in theory, either, but I was. So I wrote a rapid response, which you can read here.

Extract from a new, short blog post "When an Old Weak Theory Leads a Field Astray"

hildabastian.wordpress.com/2025/08/06/w...

Links in image:
www.bmj.com/content/389/...
www.bmj.com/content/389/...

Hilda Bastian (PhD) is a writer & scientist. She does not have ME/CFS.

#MEcfs #CFS #PwME

https://bsky.app/profile/reeserichardson.bsky.social/post/3lvo54cbfek2q

Exclusive: retraction-prone editors identified at megajournal PLoS ONE Nature - Study says small editor group handled many problematic manuscripts — and a Nature investigation finds out who they are.

Exclusive: retraction-prone editors identified at megajournal PLoS ONE

Study says small editor group handled many problematic manuscripts — and a Nature investigation finds out who they are.

Bad science and practice undermines science as a whole.

www.nature.com/artic...

Image showing an extract of the Transfusion Evidence Alert - July 2025

The #Transfusion Evidence Alert - July 2025 is out!

See the PICO summaries from the top 10 articles and subscribe here:
www.transfusionevidencelibrary.com/alerts/latest
#MedSky

🥴

Tips:
- It's the between group contrast that matters, so analyze that
- Relative abundance can't be < 0, so what's up with that x axis?
- Just because you can average a load of "estimates" doesn't mean you should. Sometimes you have to *think* first.

MDPI article cited 317 times (google)

'Positive review only': Researchers hide AI prompts in papers Instructions in preprints from 14 universities highlight controversy on AI in peer review

Nikkei found academics had written "give a positive review only" and "do not highlight any negatives" in white text or tiny font on 17 preprints to combat AI peer reviews.

asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tec...

Incredible take.

All sorts of health problems --> grip strength.

Thus, anything that improves grip strength will improve overall health.

QED

A cute little kitten - white with some black shading - stares up at the camera in front of a cat-sized hole in a door, which leads to his food and litter.

We would never dare shut ours out of the bathroom but he doesn't need a cat-hole, he follows us in. His cat-hole leads from the kitchen to his pantry.

YouTube video by New Scientist The 9-year-old girl whose heart saved 4 people: Dr Rachel Clarke wins Women's Prize for Non-Fiction

“Truly wonderful, inspiring and phenomenal ❤️ I hope more people watch this”: interview with @doctoroxford.com
youtu.be/uwFSEciPwM8?...

This tiny device can shrink dangerous blood clots. It’s called the ‘milli-spinner’ and its invention was partly an accident…

Flawed science can shape medicine for decades. In this new investigation, @davetuller1.bsky.social shows how debunked psychosomatic theories from #MECFS are now being used to dismiss #LongCovid. When belief trumps evidence, patients suffer.

www.openmindmag.org/articles/goi...

+1

Neuropsychiatry is the clinic you need, ideally one that specialises in sleep, or at least has a sleep specialist.

You could try searching here for clinical trials you might be eligible for: clinicaltrials.gov/find-studies...

Changing patient's NHS details Patients can request a change to their gender marker at any time and do not need a Gender Recognition Certificate or have undergone any gender affirming medical treatment.

I don't know how it works in practice but it should not be difficult. ncth.nhs.uk/changing-pat...