[PiggySpeed]

If you're healthcare, you're taught not to trust results because it was published under a brand-name journal.

YES, you should be skeptical, but mostly not at the journal-level. You need to be skeptical at the article-level. That is why it's so important to be actually TRAINED to interpret the studies.

The abstract of a trial is like an "advertisement" for the study. You quickly scan it to see if the study is worth reading. If it is, you make multiple passes of the article, identifying biases, understanding the study context, calculating ratios and numbers, reading through the lens of your own practice, and a bunch of other things.

[rscho]

Healthcare pros are minimally trained in research paper interpretation and are almost all unable to perform the most basic statistical or critical review work.

So yes, I'd argue that brand names are a big problem. You just have to see how proud people are when they are accepted in one of the major publication venues, and the prestige that results.

I think you are not being objective.

[cm2187]

Except that it on the sole basis of this publication that the WHO and many other health organisations suspended ongoing trials of this molecule. So let's not pretend they would have done the same based on some random obscure journal.

[panabee]

i am in the process of compiling a list of ways to quickly spot flawed studies. do you mind sharing your best tips?

[raphlinus]

There is a course on this (taught Autumn 2019 at U Wash) that will also soon be published as a book:

https://callingbullshit.org/