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GidMK's profile
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
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@GidMK

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Health NerdVerified account

@GidMK

Epidemiologist. Writer (Guardian, Observer etc). "Well known research trouble-maker". PhDing at @UoW Host of @senscipod Email gidmk.healthnerd@gmail.com he/him

Sydney, New South Wales
theguardian.com/profile/gideon…
Joined November 2015

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    1. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      Health Nerd Retweeted Health Nerd

      3/n If you missed it, my original thread on this preprint is here:https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1262956011872280577?s=20 …

      Health Nerd added,

      Health NerdVerified account @GidMK
      Today, this new preprint from John Ioannidis (of "Most Published Research Findings Are False" fame) went online Already up to Altmetric of 541 Let's do a rapid peer-review on twitter 1/n pic.twitter.com/aNth3I59Xa
      Show this thread
      1 reply 4 retweets 16 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      4/n So, reading the paper, most of the issues are still apparent: - no clear search methodology - strange inclusion/exclusion criteria - odd 'adjustments' that only ever decrease IFR - including strange studies - excluding the most robust estimates

      1 reply 7 retweets 67 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      5/n What has changed is that some of these things are now justified This is good, but not really adequate to improve the rigor of the paper

      1 reply 2 retweets 33 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      6/n For example, we now have this explanation of using the estimates derived from the included papers even if they didn't account for right-censoring The thing is, the issue still remains, we now just have a few words addressing itpic.twitter.com/xUetr3smfa

      1 reply 1 retweet 24 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      7/n There are also still obvious errors in the paper. Ioannidis claims that the Spanish seroprevalence estimate cannot be included because it has only been published as a press release This is wrongpic.twitter.com/HlwMLV5mGa

      5 replies 3 retweets 30 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      8/n In fact, the Spanish seroprevalence estimate is a lengthy government report that is FAR more detailed than many preprints. Excluding it from the main estimate makes no sense scientificallypic.twitter.com/8ammTyzDOk

      3 replies 3 retweets 45 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      9/n Similarly, the Czech Republic seroprevalence study is (while published in Czech) very comprehensive. The same is true of the Danish and English estimates (although not of the Swedish and Slovenian ones)pic.twitter.com/T4jz0po4tW

      4 replies 2 retweets 28 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      10/n In fact, it appears that Ioannidis has continued to exclude any government reports, which is still an issue (remember, governments are doing most of the testing!)

      1 reply 3 retweets 42 likes
      Show this thread
    9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      11/n So, the results Broadly speaking, we have a bunch of new studies included but the exact same issues as beforepic.twitter.com/KKzZFDUUH5

      2 replies 3 retweets 21 likes
      Show this thread
    10. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      12/n Studies with inappropriate samples to infer population IFR (such as the Kobe study) are still in there, while random, population-wide estimates (i.e. Spain) are excluded

      1 reply 2 retweets 23 likes
      Show this thread
      Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

      13/n It's also worth noting that Ioannidis has violated his own inclusion criteria, with at least one study under the arbitrary 500-person sample size that has been includedpic.twitter.com/ard0rwK6T4

      3:58 PM - 9 Jun 2020
      • 2 Retweets
      • 26 Likes
      • M.B. Drapier JoeThursday88 Oscar, Skeptic. Inventor of the Seesaw Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All Tom Sweeney André Pineda Harry Hong alex rubinsteyn Gabriela Cuello
      2 replies 2 retweets 26 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          14/n While it is hard to know why this is still the case, again the decisions made in the paper exclusively work to suggest a lower IFR than that actually implied by most research, which is worrying

          1 reply 2 retweets 29 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          15/n If we again only look at studies using a population-wide estimate of IFR, we see that the lowest estimate is still Ioannidis' Santa Clara study, with the estimates ranging from 0.18%-0.78%pic.twitter.com/7dHABZRXHI

          1 reply 1 retweet 20 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          16/n This is still a bit low - for some reason, this paper uses an incorrect IFR for the Brazilian estimate (0.3% instead 1% given by the authors) - but much more in line with the estimate from our updated meta-analysis of 0.64%https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.03.20089854v3 …

          2 replies 5 retweets 20 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          17/n One thing worth noting - the paper still makes the clear error in comparing the IFR of COVID-19 to influenza This is a common mistake, so I thought I'd highlight itpic.twitter.com/Oscf9UZn4q

          2 replies 4 retweets 31 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          18/n Here, Ioannidis is comparing the IFR of influenza used by the CDC - which is ~0.1% - to the IFR of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence studies These two figures, however, are not comparable

          2 replies 4 retweets 29 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          19/n The IFR estimate for influenza generated by the CDC is the result of a complex modelling process that inflates the numerator (deaths) according to hospitalization data for pneumonia and other ICD codespic.twitter.com/YMS8AkDyh7

          2 replies 1 retweet 32 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          20/n Why is this a problem? Well, we are not comparing apples with apples here. Numerous efforts have demonstrated that the death count of COVID-19 in many places is a significant underestimate (by 50%+)pic.twitter.com/vR5VxuCUFg

          1 reply 3 retweets 31 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          21/n If we instead compare the IFR of influenza calculated from seroprevalence studies and official death counts to the same for COVID-19, we see a VERY different picture

          1 reply 3 retweets 23 likes
          Show this thread
        10. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          22/n The HIGHEST IFR estimate for influenza using this methodology, based on a 2014 systematic review, is 0.01% That's 18x lower than the lowest reasonable estimate of COVID-19 IFRhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029/ …

          3 replies 14 retweets 58 likes
          Show this thread
        11. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          23/n More broadly, if we look at the total range, the IFR of COVID-19 calculated from seroprevalence data appears to be around 50-100x higher than the same number for influenza

          1 reply 12 retweets 33 likes
          Show this thread
        12. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          24/n This is actually a serious flaw with the paper - the author has chosen only to pursue corrections of the data that push the IFR lower. If we were to account for excess mortality attributable to COVID-19 - based on published research - the IFRs would all jump substantially

          1 reply 2 retweets 34 likes
          Show this thread
        13. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          25/n Now, there are some excellent improvements to the paper For example, much of the language in the discussion/conclusion has been correctedpic.twitter.com/KkVboq3eDO

          1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
          Show this thread
        14. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          26/n There are still odd, emotive phrases ("blind lockdown"), but the paper no longer describes COVID-19 as common and mild, which was clearly incorrect

          1 reply 0 retweets 25 likes
          Show this thread
        15. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          27/n However, overall this paper still suffers from many of the issues I previously raised, and seems to still substantially underestimate the IFR of COVID-19

          1 reply 2 retweets 33 likes
          Show this thread
        16. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 9 Jun 2020

          28/n I should be clear that I am not speculating in any way about the reasoning behind these decisions. The fact that the paper underestimates IFR is a problem, but we can't really know why these decisions were made

          2 replies 1 retweet 30 likes
          Show this thread
        17. End of conversation

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