Thread by @ProfDFrancis

I like this analysis.

However take no notice of this. I am an interventionist and it shows a reduction in some sort of events, when interventionists do our thing, so I am bound to like it.

https://twitter.com/AviBittMD/status/1379582377765306368

What I do when I read research is ask myself who organised it and why.

It's not their fault, we are all creatures of habit and are biased.

The meta analysis was by Avi, who is understandably desperate for a resounding victory for PCI.

I am too, but just less energetic in my searching, with every passing disappointment.

It's a bit like the Loch Ness monster.

Quite convincing when I was a kid, that there could be this creature, etc, and we had only verbal reports and the odd shabby picture to work from.

But as the years wear on, and the ubiquity of camera phones etc doesn't lead to an avalanche of more images, my initial optimism on Nessie wears progressively thinner.

If I see a Nessie advocate pointing to a £100 million search for Nessie, and their interpretation is that

"This is a great study because it has now shown that it is safe to look for Nessie, and it means we have lots of Nessie options to discuss",

I start laughing.

In this table there are two very large contemporary studies, can you identify them?

What did they show?

Actually Avi , one thing you could try is ordering them by date, rather than alphabetically. See if it paints a picture.

Or if you want to be more science-y, you could award each trial a number of points based on adding the usage of aspirin (on a scale of 0 if no one taking, to 1 if all taking), statin (0 for no one taking, 1 for say atorva 40 in all, and some small fraction for Simva)