Also big fan, but I was always convinced his Orch OR stuff was completely batshit. I would love to be proven wrong.

It’s certainly opinionated, polemical even. I would encourage you to read it in its entirety and follow some of many links they’ve included to make their case. I myself have subjectively noticed the same changes in science journalism over the last decade that the authors are highlighting, particularly in SciAm.

I both hate and love this probable truth.

Slightly tangential to this, when does grave robbing become archaeology?

Blimey, you’re speaking for the medical community itself as a whole now, pray tell then why haven’t they binned every systematic review ever carried out using the NOS system?

Why after 20 years of use is this system only being rubbished after two reviews into gender affirming healthcare in the UK were published?

Why are you the only person complaining about the Newcastle-Ottawa system when everyone else online is making up lies like “98% of data was dismissed”?

Again, you really need to feed this startling discovery back to the medical community which has been using NOS for over 20 years. What a scandal.

Ah young padawan, there is no such thing as proof of bias. There is merely the risk of susceptibility of it.

“Cis-supremacy in the UK’s approach to healthcare”

Yes that sounds quite scientific doesn’t it. Published a whole month before the Cass review was, brilliant prescience you must agree?

by someone who is actually qualified

An arts degree and a business doctorate do not a qualified person make.

Do you know how systematic reviews work?

Quite right, an important distinction.

Our good friend Potholer54 did a great video on Graham Hancock and his ancient apocalypse bullshit

https://youtu.be/zU-wQVAqQnk?si=2u_DBST1CxqdlTfB

It’s a real injustice that it’s pretty lucrative to peddle horseshit for a living.

Studies that self select their cohort and don’t include adequate controls are more susceptible to bias than those that do otherwise. Evaluating studies based on their susceptibility to bias is a vital part of the systematic review process.

You can read more about it here https://www.ohri.ca/programs/clinical_epidemiology/oxford.asp

They all use the same Newcastle-Ottawa system to score studies based on their likelihood of bias in the exact same way the Cass reviews do. The method you described as a joke.

Damn here’s another “joke” about contraceptives and bone fractures

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD009849.pub3/full

And one another abput yellow fever and HIV

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010929.pub2/full

And influenza vaccines in cancer patients

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD008983.pub3/full

And there’s another 96 on the first search tab alone!

Just what are those clowns at the Cochrane Library up to eh?

That’s a new goalpost. It’s being used by Cass exactly the way it’s supposed to by scoring studies based on their susceptibility to bias.

If you’d bother to read that similar systematic review on postoperative inflammatory bowel disease you would have seen the exact same usage.

So strange that everyone waited over 20 years and 100’s of systematic reviews in medicine and science before, serendipitously, discovering that the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was infact no good during these two particular reviews into trans care in the UK.

Just what are the odds?

Don’t abdicate responsibility to someone else, you’ve clearly got a firmer grasp of the issue than the editorial board of the British Medical Journal. You would be neglecting your duty as “part of the scientific community” to abdicate responsibility on such an important matter.

Indeed the whole medical establishment must be told about the critical flaws in the Newcastle-Ottawa scoring system before other medical scandals are allowed to happen. Imagine having that on your conscience.

Goal pays haven’t moved and I’ve already pointed out a dozen of so methodological flaws around the Cass report that you are choosing to ignore.

You haven’t pointed out, let alone substantiated, any. If you truly believe you have then I implore to use the rapid response function on the bmj site and communicate these catastrophic flaws to the editorial team immediately. I’d be eager to know what their reply is.

98% of the data was discarded

It was not. All studies that scored high or moderate quality made it into the synthesis. That’s 60 out of the 103 looked at, that’s not 2%.

No I’m just explaining the process and why it isn’t complete yet. Or even valid yet

You are speculating, based on nothing.

And show me that the Cochrane library ever discarded a study using the criteria even once yet alone with the same level as the Cass report and I’ll write them

Here’s one I found in <7 seconds

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD013256.pub2/full

If you want to find more simply search the Cochrane library for reviews with “Newcastle-Ottawa” in the main body of text. It seems like this is new to you.

For something that illustrates the problem with the Cass report read https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/

The relevance of a joke paper from 2003 to a systematic review published last week is certainly questionable but it seeks you’re trying to imply that Cass discarded anything except RCT’s. The didn’t and that’'s myth #2 from the original Quackometer article.

Where will the goalposts move next?

98% of the data was discarded

Liar.

Those peer reviews are most likely selected and not randomized selections or contestations

So now they were peer reviewed but by people you don’t trust based on the same evidence you used to assert it wasn’t peer reviewed in the first place I.e. zero.

Again you have not proven that the new castle Ottawa scale has any efficacy or scientific merit as a disqualifying tool No one has as far as I know.

You’d better tell the Cohcrane library to bin every systematic review they’ve ever done which used this system then. I’d be eager to hear their reply to you

And yet you have no scientific reason other than an ad hominem fallacy with the author with which to dismiss the criticism with.

If they made a scientific argument about these review papers under discussion I might but this is just a polemic using unscientific language like “cis-supremacy” in a low impact obscure journal.

That like the Cass report are not scientifically sufficient reasons to disclude the criticism or the data respectively.

Newcastle-Ottawa scoring is a scientific method for weighting the methodical quality of scientific studies.

And I can garuntee you that the Cass report was not peer reviewed like all of the studies they dismissed were because it would have been torn apart.

It was peer reviewed since thats BMJ policy, unless you have evidence to the contrary. There is even a link on the online edition of both reviews for you to submit a rapid response pointing out all their flaws which I would encourage you to do.

That’s the real litmus test of scientific debate.

Interestingly some nice fellow DM’d me with a link to “Patient Zero” of the “they dismissed 98% of the data” myth.

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1779671152148857212

And of course, everyone has doubled down rather than admit they read the wrong paper. A better “litmus test” of scientific debate is humbly correcting yourself when shown to be wrong.

“They dismissed 98% of the data” remains a lie.