FWIW "sample size" is not really the right perspective for a "case study". Sometimes doctors just need to share anecdotes, and that has a pretty long tradition AFAICT.
The pendulum thing seems double-blindable, e.g. "if there's a person in this box, here's how they're oriented, please diagnose them or tell us if the box is empty." Has anyone tried this?
As detaro has pointed out elsewhere in this thread (twice!), this is not from an NIH publication. It's provided as part of the NIH's pubmed archive. The paper itself was published in Integrative Medicine: A Clinician's Journal.
I don't think this invalidates the point or makes it not problematic that they host this content without any disclaimer. It would be extremely easy in many contexts to pass this off as being officially endorsed and on some level, regardless of the specifics, I'd call hosting it on their website some degree of implicit endorsement.
If it said something really terrible or unPC, do you think they'd leave it up just because "having it on the site isn't an official endorsement"?
Id bet my bottom dollar there are people passing these .gov links around on shitty facebook groups and saying, "look, even the NIH admits chakras are real"
At a minimum, they don't do anything to disabuse that notion like a header saying "we don't endorse everything we host" which seems like a reasonable first step.
pubmed is like a library. I agree with you that people might take something available via pubmed as somehow endorsed by the NIH. People also seem to no longer be able to differentiate between editorials, columns, guest opinion pieces, and articles in newspapers. I'm not sure what to do about that.
The article does clearly label the authors and the publication. pubmed, while fortunately available to the general public (it wasn't when I was in school), it is not necessarily intended for general audiences, as it were. From the about page https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/about/:
> "PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature with the aim of improving health–both globally and personally."
> "The PubMed database contains more than 34 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature. It does not include full text journal articles; however, links to the full text are often present when available from other sources, such as the publisher's website or PubMed Central (PMC)."
> "Citations in PubMed primarily stem from the biomedicine and health fields, and related disciplines such as life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering."
At some point you have to have enough context that you bring yourself. Reasonable people can disagree at how much context should be required.
11 comments
[ 6.3 ms ] story [ 31.9 ms ] threadThe pendulum thing seems double-blindable, e.g. "if there's a person in this box, here's how they're oriented, please diagnose them or tell us if the box is empty." Has anyone tried this?
No surprise we've got antibacterial with stuff like this on the nih website. Zero credibility
If it said something really terrible or unPC, do you think they'd leave it up just because "having it on the site isn't an official endorsement"?
Id bet my bottom dollar there are people passing these .gov links around on shitty facebook groups and saying, "look, even the NIH admits chakras are real"
At a minimum, they don't do anything to disabuse that notion like a header saying "we don't endorse everything we host" which seems like a reasonable first step.
The article does clearly label the authors and the publication. pubmed, while fortunately available to the general public (it wasn't when I was in school), it is not necessarily intended for general audiences, as it were. From the about page https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/about/:
> "PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature with the aim of improving health–both globally and personally."
> "The PubMed database contains more than 34 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature. It does not include full text journal articles; however, links to the full text are often present when available from other sources, such as the publisher's website or PubMed Central (PMC)."
> "Citations in PubMed primarily stem from the biomedicine and health fields, and related disciplines such as life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering."
At some point you have to have enough context that you bring yourself. Reasonable people can disagree at how much context should be required.
Pfffft.