andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-463 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Sander Wagner writes: I just read the post on ethical concerns in medical trials. As there seems to be a lot more pressure on private researchers i thought it might be a nice little exercise to compare p-values from privately funded medical trials with those reported from publicly funded research, to see if confirmation pressure is higher in private research (i.e. p-values are closer to the cutoff levels for significance for the privately funded research). Do you think this is a decent idea or are you sceptical? Also are you aware of any sources listing a large number of representative medical studies and their type of funding? My reply: This sounds like something worth studying. I don’t know where to get data about this sort of thing, but now that it’s been blogged, maybe someone will follow up.
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1 Sander Wagner writes: I just read the post on ethical concerns in medical trials. [sent-1, score-0.628]
2 As there seems to be a lot more pressure on private researchers i thought it might be a nice little exercise to compare p-values from privately funded medical trials with those reported from publicly funded research, to see if confirmation pressure is higher in private research (i. [sent-2, score-3.739]
3 p-values are closer to the cutoff levels for significance for the privately funded research). [sent-4, score-1.266]
4 Do you think this is a decent idea or are you sceptical? [sent-5, score-0.206]
5 Also are you aware of any sources listing a large number of representative medical studies and their type of funding? [sent-6, score-1.046]
6 My reply: This sounds like something worth studying. [sent-7, score-0.208]
7 I don’t know where to get data about this sort of thing, but now that it’s been blogged, maybe someone will follow up. [sent-8, score-0.231]
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same-blog 1 0.99999994 463 andrew gelman stats-2010-12-11-Compare p-values from privately funded medical trials to those in publicly funded research?
Introduction: Sander Wagner writes: I just read the post on ethical concerns in medical trials. As there seems to be a lot more pressure on private researchers i thought it might be a nice little exercise to compare p-values from privately funded medical trials with those reported from publicly funded research, to see if confirmation pressure is higher in private research (i.e. p-values are closer to the cutoff levels for significance for the privately funded research). Do you think this is a decent idea or are you sceptical? Also are you aware of any sources listing a large number of representative medical studies and their type of funding? My reply: This sounds like something worth studying. I don’t know where to get data about this sort of thing, but now that it’s been blogged, maybe someone will follow up.
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Introduction: Thurs 19 Jan 7pm at the NYC Machine Learning meetup. Stan ‘s entirely publicly funded and open-source and it has no secrets . Ask us about it and we’ll tell you everything you might want to know. P.S. And here ‘s the talk.
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Introduction: I just read this article on the treatment of medical volunteers, written by doctor and bioethicist Carl Ellliott. As a statistician who has done a small amount of consulting for pharmaceutical companies, I have a slightly different perspective. As a doctor, Elliott focuses on individual patients, whereas, as a statistician, I’ve been trained to focus on the goal of accurately estimate treatment effects. I’ll go through Elliott’s article and give my reactions. Elliott: In Miami, investigative reporters for Bloomberg Markets magazine discovered that a contract research organisation called SFBC International was testing drugs on undocumented immigrants in a rundown motel; since that report, the motel has been demolished for fire and safety violations. . . . SFBC had recently been named one of the best small businesses in America by Forbes magazine. The Holiday Inn testing facility was the largest in North America, and had been operating for nearly ten years before inspecto
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Introduction: Sander Wagner writes: I just read the post on ethical concerns in medical trials. As there seems to be a lot more pressure on private researchers i thought it might be a nice little exercise to compare p-values from privately funded medical trials with those reported from publicly funded research, to see if confirmation pressure is higher in private research (i.e. p-values are closer to the cutoff levels for significance for the privately funded research). Do you think this is a decent idea or are you sceptical? Also are you aware of any sources listing a large number of representative medical studies and their type of funding? My reply: This sounds like something worth studying. I don’t know where to get data about this sort of thing, but now that it’s been blogged, maybe someone will follow up.
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Introduction: Someone who works in statistics in the pharmaceutical industry (but prefers to remain anonymous) sent me this update to our discussion on the differences between approvals of drugs and medical devices: The ‘substantial equivalence’ threshold is a very outdated. Basically the FDA has to follow federal law and the law is antiquated and leads to two extraordinarily different paths for device approval. You could have a very simple but first-in-kind device with an easy to understand physiological mechanism of action (e.g. the FDA approved a simple tiny stent that would relieve pressure from a glaucoma patient’s eye this summer). This device would require a standard (likely controlled) trial at the one-sided 0.025 level. Even after the trial it would likely go to a panel where outside experts (e.g.practicing & academic MDs and statisticians) hear evidence from the company and FDA and vote on its safety and efficacy. FDA would then rule, consider the panel’s vote, on whether to appro
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Introduction: Interesting article by Sharon Begley and Mary Carmichael. They discuss how there is tons of federal support for basic research but that there’s a big gap between research findings and medical applications–a gap that, according to them, arises not just from the inevitable problem that not all research hypotheses pan out, but because actual promising potential cures don’t get researched because of the cost. I have two thoughts on this. First, in my experience, research at any level requires a continuing forward momentum, a push from somebody to keep it going. I’ve worked on some great projects (some of which had Federal research funding) that ground to a halt because the original motivation died. I expect this is true with medical research also. One of the projects that I’m thinking of, which I’ve made almost no progress on for several years, I’m sure would make a useful contribution. I pretty much know it would work–it just takes work to make it work, and it’s hard to do this
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