Read on Twitter
I want to comment briefly on why I find this particular website so infuriating and why I am confident in calling it disinformation.
Dr. Fauci and many other health officials have stressed the importance of randomized controlled trials as the gold standard. https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1291837801512595457
Dr. Fauci and many other health officials have stressed the importance of randomized controlled trials as the gold standard. https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1291837801512595457
This very slick website presents what appears to be a research report using the language of randomly controlled trials, even talking about "assigning" countries to the control group or the treatment group.
We don't say randomized controlled trial, defenders of the website protest. We say country-randomized controlled trial, and that's a different thing.
How many members of the public will know the difference? This is designed to confuse.
How many members of the public will know the difference? This is designed to confuse.
So what is a country-randomized controlled trial?
It seems to be something *made up* entirely for this article.
I did a searches on @google, Google scholar, @webofscience, and @scopus.
The term "country-randomized controlled trial" has NEVER been used prior to this article.
It seems to be something *made up* entirely for this article.
I did a searches on @google, Google scholar, @webofscience, and @scopus.
The term "country-randomized controlled trial" has NEVER been used prior to this article.
Meanwhile the website's authors have recognized that they overstepped with their "assignment" language, and are rapidly backtracking—without the sort of changelog that any preprint server or reputable scientific outlet would require. Compare versions from 12 hours ago with now:
Given the aggressive misuse of randomized controlled trial terminology—a mistake no public health professional would make—and the subsequent half-retreat without notification, I find it extremely hard to see how this could be anything other than a deliberate attempt to confuse.
Remarkably, early copies of this web page with the original text have now been removed from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. (This is perfectly justified for a copyright owner to do, but quite odd to have happened so quickly).
Why are they trying so hard to hide things?
Why are they trying so hard to hide things?
Copies from today are still available on the Wayback Machine, for whatever that's worth. But the changes I noted in this thread can no longer be observed via the Wayback Machine, which previously had an 8/7/20 mirror of the site.
