Thrilled to see PLOS Medicine (@plos.org) now REQUIRES the TARGET checklist to be completed for submitted target trial emulations. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004796 Transparent reporting shouldn't be optional, if you edit at a journal, please encourage your EiC or publishers to follow suit.

🧠 Balancing open science with research security is a hallmark of the modern research mindset. Researchers can foster discovery and collaboration, while also safeguarding sensitive data and intellectual property from misuse. 🧪 Learn more ➡️ go.cca-reports.ca/3KPUnob

New PhD position available at @mrcctu.bsky.social to develop guidance on balancing statistical and clinical considerations when choosing an estimand in RCTs. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Does unblinding due to side effects lead to bias in placebo-controlled trials? And are active placebos a possible solution? (Spoiler alert: we are not sure.) #ActivePlacebo #ActivePlacebos #Blinding #Unblinding #Placebo #Bias 1/10

Roll up, roll up. Get your snake oil and miracle cures here! ✅ Precision medicine ✅ Automated causal inference ✅ Polygenic scores ✅ 1000+ outcome prediction models ✅ In sillico trials ✅ Exposomics ✅ Anything involve 'AI' ✅ Any other trend, shortcut, or bandwagon!

As use of target trial emulation increases, transparent reporting is critical to allow readers to pick the good from the bad. We argue that TARGET will improve peer review, appraisal and trust in target trial emulations & journals should encourage its use. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004787

Every. Single. Time. Although i think the falling off the bike is me *truly* learning the method.

NEW PAPER! (in press in EPIDEMIOLOGY) Have you wondered: - How to specify a target trial: as an ideal trial or something else? - What biases do target trial emulations and actual RCTs share? - How does it all relate to potential outcomes? Read here! 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2405.10026 #EpiSky #CausalSky

For Monday crowd. INSPECT-SR, a tool to help you identify problematic (inc. fraudulent) RCTs, now available.

A detailed guidance document and editable template are available here: osf.io/b74wj/files/...

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... INSPECT-SR: A tool for assessing trustworthiness of randomised controlled trials.

🎯 TARGET Guideline published 🎉 TARGET is a reporting guideline for observational studies of interventions that use the target trial framework. Over 3 years the @TARGETGuideline was rigorously developed and was co-published today in @jama.com & @bmj.com doi.org/10.1001/jama.2025.13350 #episky

One of the most common misunderstandings about the use and value of placebos in clinical RCTs, often made by both methodological experts and experienced trialists: (from @stephensenn.bsky.social in academic.oup.com/jrsssa/advan...)

In the med literature, statements like “to our knowledge [TOK], this is the FIRST...” often replace a proper systematic search. Among 4488 PMC articles in 6 leading medical journals published 2020-2024, TOK prevalence was 21.7%, w @PLOSMedicine highest (48.4%) and @NEJM lowest (1.3%) #CornellVet

Out this morning, TARGET a guideline to help get target trial emulation studies to report a standard set of items #prc10 @peerreviewcongress.bsky.social @bmj.com @societyforepi.bsky.social

When using observational data for #causalinference, the choice isn’t between emulating or not emulating a #TargetTrial, but between reporting or not reporting the target trial that we are emulating. For those who prefer to be explicit about what they do, we have developed the TARGET Statement 👇

🎯 TARGET Guideline published 🎉 TARGET is a reporting guideline for observational studies of interventions that use the target trial framework. Over 3 years the @TARGETGuideline was rigorously developed and was co-published today in @jama.com & @bmj.com doi.org/10.1001/jama.2025.13350 #episky

OSF is reviewing its generalist preprint server partly because of “Volume and quality challenges: The generalist server has seen increasing numbers of suspicious or low-quality submissions…trends such as generative AI and paper mills have introduced new risks to research integrity”

There's no reason not to share data from a systematic literature review, other than cowardice.

September @vicbiostat.bsky.social seminar: Camila Olarte Parra from @causalab.bsky.social Karolinska will speak on combining information from trial participants and non-participants in registry-based trials. All welcome online 25 September. More info: www.vicbiostat.org.au/event/combin...

Out today 🚨 Our Cochrane review of 67 RCTs finds no clear evidence of benefit for ketamine or other NMDA antagonists for chronic pain. IV ketamine associated with risk of psychotomimetic effects, nausea, and vomiting. doi.org/10.1002/1465...

📌 The SPIRIT 2025 statement updates the guidelines for randomized trial protocols to enhance their completeness, transparency, and consistency, benefiting stakeholders involved in clinical research. ja.ma/4fzMVZS

Systematic reviewers have a 10.7% error rate when screening papers for potential inclusion. In other words, about 1 in 9 abstracts are categorised incorrectly (i.e., false inclusion or false exclusion). This really drives home the benefit of having at least two screeners

This decline is not limited to the United States. It has been happening in many countries.

Death rates from cardiovascular disease have been falling for a long time, but we rarely hear about it. @scientificdiscovery.dev looks at some of the medical innovations and changes in risk factors that are behind this: ourworldindata.org/cardiovascul...

A letter from myself and @jdwilko.bsky.social that expands on this a bit more. Thanks to Fertility and Sterility for the opportunity. doi.org/10.1016/j.fe...

Care about #reproducibility in research & publishing? Join this webinar on Aug 27th, jointly organised by @aimosinc.bsky.social & @ausrepro.bsky.social on statistical reproducibility with @michelenuijten.bsky.social & @tomhardwicke.bsky.social Free - register here qut.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Super exciting to see this published by Susie! This started as a 4th year lit review and became a really constructive piece in the BJSM! Whilst a big step forward, perhaps the IOC statement on RED-S overlooks the coaches role? doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2024-109563

Once you truly understand causal inference theory, it's very hard to win an honest applied grant because: * Many questions can't be answered * Almost everything that sounds big and exciting is snake oil * Most reviewers won't understand * you're competing with the bandwagon-jumping cynics

One-Page Patient Fact Sheets for Low Back Pain in Primary Care Fact sheets do better than regular advice to support shared decision making! jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Great opening plenary by Prof Matt Fox about the role of intuition in epidemiology - some key takeaways were that intuition can be helpful, but also detrimental. Quantifying uncertainty can be a good strategy to avoid making readers (and yourself) not have to use intuition! #AEA2025

This is a confusing retraction. retractionwatch.com/2025/07/11/r... Sounds like the reason for retraction was crappy causal inference? But if so, Scientific Reports likely has many more papers to retract. And the abstract doesn't even make a clear causal claim! Seems like a run of the mill

Congrats to the ANZMUSC members who presented their research at the 19th IBNP Forum last week in Switzerland!🇨🇭 Fantastic to see strong Australian involvement - 69 participants from Aus and 1 from NZ - and to witness numerous sessions facilitated by these attendees.

Editorial commitment to trust and integrity in science: implications for pain and anesthesiology research journals.lww.com/pain/fulltex...

The primary impact of openness is to make it possible to evaluate research for improvement and self-correction. Openness doesn’t solve quality challenges itself, except possibly a minor influence on accountability because others look, or could look.

How can we reform science? I have some ideas. But I am not sure you’ll like them, because they don’t promise much. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...

Concerns raised about an RCT of Vitamin K2 in JAMA Internal Medicine: www.pubpeer.com/publications...

New from The Strain Team: 🎊 Springer Nature Discovers MDPI 🎊 Springer Nature has spawned a copycat journal series called "Discover" mimicking #MDPI journal titles and citation behaviours. We even made a browser game to prove it (see 🔗). Gross! 😀 1/n #ResearchIntegrity #SciPub #AcademicSky

International #ResearchIntegrity conference taking place in beautiful Sydney Australia on 16-18 November 2025 🐨 🌏 Great speakers including @elisabethbik.bsky.social @jdwilko.bsky.social @jasonchin.bsky.social For more info contact @simongandevia.bsky.social 🧪

What do governments spend money on?

Great way to learn the basics of policy trial emulation and the importance of careful study design for health policy!

📢 New Commentary: We discuss how analytic choices impact interpretation of studies on socioeconomic health inequities. We review 1) descriptive analogues of causal estimands (à la Young et al) with competing events; 2) timescale choice; and 3) covariate adjustment. 👉 academic.oup.com/aje/advance-...

No. This study does not show that drinking champagne could reduce your risk of cardiac arrest. It shows that many things can predict your chances of cardiac arrest. Unsurprisingly, this includes the amount of champagne you drink, which is doubtless a marker of wealth.

NEW PAPER: Updated SPIRIT-2025 for reporting protocols of randomised trials is now available in the @BMJ.com, @JAMA.com, @thelancet.bsky.social, @PLoS.org, and @natmedicine.bsky.social. —> www.bmj.com/content/389/... #openscience #transparency #medsky #statssky #episky

SPIRIT 2025 guidelines for protocols now published in @bmj.com journal and others www.bmj.com/content/389/...

We can't work out why funds designated to medical research can't be released from the MRFF. So we animated it 👇. Share this & help AAMRI secure the election promise that these unspent funds, that are allocated and available, will be released. #standupforscience2025 #election2025

The CONSORT statement has been updated to reflect recent methodological advancements and user feedback. This article describes the rationale for each checklist item and provides published examples of good reporting www.bmj.com/content/389/...

Awesome talk from rising star Mia Ryan on GP and people with low back pain perspectives of mobile health apps for the management of pain. High quality, trustworthy apps are needed. Thankfully the team at the Centre for Pain IMPACT is doing a clinical trial of such an app! #AusPainSoc

@saurabsharma.bsky.social and Tie Yamato kicking off #APS2025 and the @iasp.bsky.social Global Year for pain management in low and middle income settings. A call to action to improve pain management in these settings @auspainsoc.bsky.social

Is adherence to exercise associated with different effects in people with chronic low back pain? Find out here in a systematic review and meta-analysis led by Matt Jones & Liane Wood! @iasp.bsky.social sciencedirect.com/science/arti...