Re:How a cult captured the NHS
by profunctor on Friday April 12, 2024 @10:01AM
(#40013016)
Yes and to add on to that, the reason this decision is criticised is that it is very difficult or even impossible to properly blind a puberty blocking study. If you give people fake puberty blockers and then they start to go through puberty blockers they will be aware. Same goes for the reverse.
> To be precise, the report excluded studies of blockers for not being blinded, in a recreation of the 2003 review of parachute efficiacy
No, studies were excluded for being of poor quality per their rating on the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, which is a tool used to assess the quality of non-randomized studies.
You can see the review authors' scoring of each study here: https://adc.bmj.com/content/archdischild/early/2024/04/09/ar...
Those excluded have a NOS total score of 4 or less and, as this table shows, a score that low is for multiple reasons including not having a representative cohort and inadequacy of follow-up.
The review itself can be read here: https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/09/archdischild-20...
To be precise, the report excluded studies of blockers for not being blinded, in a recreation of the 2003 review of parachute efficiacy [1]
Not that it's particularly consistent about any evidentiary standard, as they happily cite a "self-identified sample of 100 completing an anonymous online questionnaire" later on
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/