“The intellectual mountaineer makes false starts, gets stuck, gets into blind alleys and cul-de-sacs, finds himself in untenable positions, has to backtrack and start again. Thus slowly and painfully, with innumerable errors and corrections, he makes his zigzag path up the mountain.” Helmholtz At the end of 2024, I retired and reflected on my career, … Continue reading Research strategy: five lessons from my career
Setting a new study in the context of previous studies: a simple calculator
(This blog is based on the Open Access publication: Paul Glasziou, Mark Jones, Mike Clarke. Setting New Research in the context of Previous Research: some options, BMJ EBM, 2023,) Interpreting reports of new controlled trials is greatly aided if the Discussion sets the results in the context of the results from available similar research, ideally … Continue reading Setting a new study in the context of previous studies: a simple calculator
COVID-19 vaccine development and Formula-1 pit stops
Have you ever watched a Formula One pit stop and tyre change? Though no fan of car racing, I find the 2-second pit stops breathtaking. In 1937 the pitstop record was 33 seconds - impossibly slow by today’s standards. Continual improvements in technology and the coordination of the process have seen the near 20-fold reduction … Continue reading COVID-19 vaccine development and Formula-1 pit stops
It’s a research emergency! Lessons from the pandemic
The co-operative, multiplayer game “Pandemic” is won by ‘researchers’ and ‘scientists’ while the other players work to slow the spread ("flatten the curve" and "zero covid"), buying time for the researchers to develop and test effective vaccines and/or treatments for the four epidemic diseases. Designed in 2008 (after the SARS outbreak) the game is instructive … Continue reading It’s a research emergency! Lessons from the pandemic
How many diseases are there?
Diseases can go unrecognised for decades or centuries - until some clever clinician sees a pattern that no one else has seen. A few years ago, a previously carnivorous relative of mine became ill - swelling and gut symptoms - after eating meat. Fortunately a knowledgable doctor recognised this as the recently described tick-induced allergy … Continue reading How many diseases are there?
How to make responding to reviewers (almost) fun!
Most of these blogs are about health and evidence issues, but occassionally they will just relate to the processes of research. So this one is about responding to peer review, which most researchers find traumatic as captured in Nick Kim's grim cartoon below. https://scienceandink.com/350dpi/ISS-12_nz060.jpg When I've asked folk about this, their response to reviewer comments … Continue reading How to make responding to reviewers (almost) fun!
When will my kidneys fail? Try this handy chart
My recent blood test suggests that I will develop chronic kidney disease sometime in my 90s. The standard measure of kidney function is the estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR). Mine was calculated as 86 - which the current classification says is Stage 2 of so-called "chronic kidney disease" (CKD). Kidney Health Australia tells me that … Continue reading When will my kidneys fail? Try this handy chart
Addressing the scandal of poor medical research
"Huge sums of money are spent annually on research that is seriously flawed through the use of inappropriate designs, unrepresentative samples, small samples, incorrect methods of analysis, and faulty interpretation." - Doug Altman, BMJ 1994 Doug Altman was a statistician in Oxford who spent much of his career trying to improve the quality of research. His … Continue reading Addressing the scandal of poor medical research
What is the global cost of avoidable waste in research?
What is the cost of the reproducibility crisis and the waste in research? This question came up in a recent Tweet pointing out the possible falsification of images in a key study on Alzheimer's disease in 2006 that led to considerable subsequent research. As Alex Holcombe pointed out "Even without fraud, many avenues that biologists … Continue reading What is the global cost of avoidable waste in research?
The decline in COVID-19’s case fatality rate (to near ’flu)
Since the start of the pandemic we have seen a near 30-fold decline in the case-fatality rate from COVID-19. That decline is from vaccines, better treatments, and the change in variants. The graph below is from our article in TheConversation on Australia's COVID numbers and shows (a) most COVID cases/deaths (>90%) have been in 2022 … Continue reading The decline in COVID-19’s case fatality rate (to near ’flu)
Healthy Evidence 
