I wouldn't describe Jay as "man in the middle" unless I were making sort of human centipede analogy.

After the Bondi attack, I wrote about guns and gun laws as a Jewish Australian and an expert in public health: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

From 4 years ago...still accurate from @gidmk.bsky.social ... never forget, when meds are made unavailable, unaffordable or demonized...#Big Supplement will be quick to attempt to fill the gap

This is a fun one. Vitamin D for Mongolian schoolchildren. The main study has been cited hundreds of times, it forms a large part of many meta-analyses showing that vitamin D reduces the incidence of respiratory infections.

One of the main problems with the entire "good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns" ethos is that there is no useful definition of either "good" or "bad" guys.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Water causes diabetes. Inject the Pepsi Max directly into my veins.

Scientific error-checking, difficulty: mixed Find some errors for me. I can see at least 3 problems, there are probably more. Tables are from an RCT with group sizes of 40 and 37 in the intervention and control groups. Bonus points for the most piratical explanation of the issues

Is saturated fat good for you? Experts say no, but the current US administration has found a partially sentient tapeworm attached to a dying warthog that disagrees.

As the Australian teen social media ban comes into effect, I think we can all finally breathe a sigh of relief that we will never have to actually know what 6 7 means.

I am not familiar enough with calcium scores to know if this is weird. Is there any biochemical reason that all of these means/SDs would end in even numbers?

My new piece looks at the science about low vitamin D levels and why the US Endocrine Society no longer uses the term "deficiency" at all. gidmk.substack.com/p/theres-no-...

It's quite remarkable watching the very minimal respect I had for Vinay entirely disappear.

The Guardian investigation into freebirthing is one of the most horrifying things I've read in a long time. Just awful. So many preventable deaths. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

I've come across a trial which randomized in blocks of 4 but had baseline allocations of 54 vs 35. This does not seem possible to me. Am I missing something?

The stuff you find when you actually read the RCTs in a systematic review... This paper is one of the foundational studies on vitamin D to prevent respiratory infections in kids. Cited 1,400 times as per Google Scholar.

Scientific error-checking, difficulty: easy Find some issues in this table of results from an RCT of vitamin D for COVID-19. There's a couple of obvious issues, and some that are less easy to spot.

Scientific error-checking, difficulty: easy Find the problems in this table of results from an RCT. Two main things I've noticed so far.

Every time I think that the story of vitamin D supplementation can't get any more ridiculous, it somehow does. The most used pill in the world and we know it's probably a waste of time for most people.

My new piece is on the idea that Batman can make us more ethical and why it is very unlikely to be true. gidmk.substack.com/p/does-batma...

Ah, Bryan Johnson: the man who looks a decade older than he is and has almost certainly harmed his health through a cocktail of useless - but harmful - supplements. Also, he pays millions a year for the privilege. HEALTH.

Sad to see the CDC is now spreading fairly straightforward lies.

My new piece is on the deeply worrying problem of fraud in the obstetric and gynaecological space and what's being done about it. gidmk.substack.com/p/the-terrif...

Very interesting data - desk rejections have risen hugely at Frontiers journals due largely to paper mill detections and other fraud checks. Do any other publishers do this automatically?

"There are stupid fabricators and there are more competent ones. Potentially, LLMs lower the bar and allow the stupid ones to do a better job" ~a chilling problem highlighted by Jack Wilkinson at the International Research Integrity Conference

Live posting day 2 of the International Research Integrity Conference in Sydney. researchintegrityconf.com/internationa... We start with session 4: What might work? Cyril Labbe with "Detection of Research Rubbish and More" #IRICSydney

Next: Jack Wilkinson @jdwilko.bsky.social with 'Problematic clinical trials and the threat to evidence synthesis' Systematic reviews are considered the cornerstone of medicine. But some of the eligible trials that could be included might be problematic. They could get included. #IRICSydney

We end today's conference day with a discussion led by Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz @gidmk.bsky.social Anyone who has tried to report concerns will have experienced how journals and institutions defer responsibility to the other party and how they 'investigate' and find 'no misconduct'. #IRICSydney

We did a thing. 😬

This is one of the most remarkable academic debacles I've ever seen. A large RCT got published in BMJ. There are currently 44 Pubpeer comments, mostly about the data, including...well. Read for yourself. pubpeer.com/publications...

I've thought for a while that one of the key parts of pandemic success - both in terms of mortality and economics - during COVID-19 was public trust. I also think that one of the things that really supported public trust was consistency of messaging and implementation.

As a Co-Investigator on the #PANDA Trial, I approve this message. Australian friends and colleagues, take note! 👇 www.powerlab.site/research/pan... #healthybynature

Someone asked me about ivermectin for COVID-19 recently and it's such a bizarre blast from the past. Can't believe it's been more than 4 years since we proved much of the benefit was based on fraudulent research! Wild.

We're running a trial of exercise in nature here in Sydney. Free support for exercise and wellbeing for those who participate. If you know anyone who might be interested, please share our link: www.powerlab.site/research/pan...

It is so bizarre seeing people argue that the incredibly limited data showing that severe cases of Long COVID have some minor immune issues makes COVID-19 anything like HIV.

My new piece looks at a meme that's been going viral for the last 6 years, and whether healthcare administrators are really causing healthcare costs to skyrocket in the United States. gidmk.substack.com/p/are-admini...

Imagine getting headshot by a 14 year old in Arc Raiders and then you report him to the Australian police who ban his account. Incredible. Incredible feeling.

A very interesting comparison here. 2025 vs 2023 for my state of NSW. Testing for COVID-19 and influenza has not changed substantially that I'm aware of in this time. The labs generally test for both on any swabs taken. The ratio of COVID-19:Flu 2025 - 0.49 2023 - 2.97 (!)

One of the things that Australia really excels at is consumer protection.

A study I wrote to the journal about in May this year was just retracted: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... The review paper claimed that the majority of benefits in clinical trials could be explained by placebo effects.

so lilaware and i took a stab at it. there are some methodological caveats due to resource constraints, will discuss below for 2 samples of (stacks of 5 pennies) x 8 in each sample, p = .41 @gidmk.bsky.social @markhoofnagle.medsky.social

One thing that always identifies charlatans - they blame patients when their treatment fails.

Headlines are saying that COVID-19 and flu TRIPLE your risk of heart attack. This is just a painful story about pretty weak science. If nothing else, the "triple" risk is only over the first 14 days post-infection and declines enormously after that! 1/n

Not a bad run for a random Saturday morning.

A spooky piece for a spooky day - why do parents believe that sugar causes hyperactivity in children when we've known for decades that it doesn't? slate.com/life/2025/10...

Credit to MDPI for retracting this vitamin D/COVID-19 meta-analysis that @gidmk.bsky.social and I flagged: pubpeer.com/publications...

I wonder if the increasing accuracy of computer translation services has resulted in fewer ridiculous tattoos

Bit of news - a study I emailed the journal about last year was just retracted www.nature.com/articles/s41...

8 months later and this "journal" has more people on the editorial board (19) than published "research articles" (7). 😆And that's with hyperprolific author JPAI involved. He could spare them at least an article a week and never notice.

A bunch of headlines are proclaiming that you can boost your metabolism and you don't even have to exercise! Except, that's not really true. Let's look at the study. 1/n

Putting a CONSORT diagram in the supplementary materials but the verbal description in the text is entirely the wrong way around imo.