Monday, June 11, 2012

Never forget to check your references

Unlike the sober and responsible team at Riddled Research Institute, some people will stop at nothing to win an IgNobel prize:
The authors made it clear in their press statements that the story is not just about creating autistic fish through chemistry...
It has proved a boon to the scribes of the Daily Fail and HuffPost in their "ongoing project to divide all the inanimate objects in the world into the ones that either cause or prevent cancer autism"* (e.g. Poinsettias) It would also provide us with an opportunity for a joke about Social Morays, except we made it earlier.

Reading past the Abstract, we discover that the test minnows were immersed in water loaded with two antidepressants and an anti-convulsant, at concentrations 400 to 700 times higher than anything ever found in tap-water.** The authors sliced and diced the fish brains to measure the activity of genes that they believe are counterparts of genes associated with autism in humans. As controls they also measured the activity of the genetic correlates of "fragile X and Rett syndromes", "Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, major depression, bipolar disorder and ADHD".***

At the Research Institute we are naturally agog, not to mention Magog, and as you see we are already hard at work exposing fish to unrealistically high levels of convertibles and frogs.


The inspiration for the study seems to have been a paper by Croen et al. claiming that SSRIs caused a slightly higher risk of autism / Asperger's Syndrome / PDD when taken during pregnancy in your actual therapeutic dosage [106 times higher]. Croen couldn't quantify the increased risk because she was measuring adjusted odds ratios, i.e. the likelihood of a certain precedent (given an observed antecedent):
mothers of children subsequently diagnosed with ASD were twice as likely to have at least 1 antidepressant prescription in the year prior to delivery of the study child
The risk is the chance of observing an antecedent (given a precedent) and the increase works out to be much smaller. In their press release -- where a massive overstatement is more sensational and more important than telling the truth -- Croen et al. did in fact misquote their own work and talk about a "doubled risk". That's why one reads the original paper.
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"Why would anyone bother giving antidepressants to fish?" Chapman wondered aloud.

"To assuage their anxieties and bestow upon them the peace of cod that passeth understanding," Keats suggested.
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* © Ben Goldacre

** Questioned about this unrealistic dose, the authors explained that the levels reported from drinking water are growing all the time, and therefore may some day reach a concentration comparable to their experiment -- whereupon it will retrospectively affect infants born before 2010 IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROPHECY.

*** Skeptics might argue that these genes may not serve the same purpose in the neurological development of fish and of humans. But they will be refuted when fish are encountered showing fragile X and Rett syndromes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, major depression, bipolar disorder and ADHD!

12 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

the peace of cod that passeth understanding

Bravo, Sir!
~

fish said...

"Why would anyone bother giving antidepressants to fish?" Chapman wondered aloud.

Sometimes we just don't have the necessary tools to help ourselves.

mikey said...

Well, duh.

I mean, c'mon, have you ever watched fish swimming around in one o'those big glass fish tank thingies?

They are all still, then they dash to the other side, then they stop, then all of a sudden they sprint to the bottom, then they go behind the ceramic deep sea diver and by the next morning they're floating on their backs.

I'm tellin' ya, All fish have ADHD...

fish said...

when fish are encountered showing fragile X

And think how hard it will be to refute, since fish were able to get fragile X without even having an X chromosome.

EAT IT COBAG DENIERS!!!

fish said...

What was mikey just saying?

Substance McGravitas said...

But they will be refuted when fish are encountered showing fragile X and Rett syndromes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, major depression, bipolar disorder and ADHD!

OMG!

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

The authors sliced and diced the fish brains


Mmmmm. fish brains doused with drugs. I will take them after the science is done; Friday Fish Fry!

fish said...

I would also like to go on the record as NOT FOOLED!

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

"Why would anyone bother giving antidepressants to fish?" Chapman wondered aloud.

Because it makes it easier for them to function in schools.

Smut Clyde said...

BBBB is banned.

wiley said...

What's most sad is that the quacky studies that are popular at the Huff aren't too much more shabby than the studies on mental illness as defined by the DSM and drug therapies that are paid for and often ghostwritten by drug companies.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

One should also refrain from forgetting to reference one's Czechs.
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