Smoking never killed anybody...

[Maxone73]

...ok I am just joking, but sometimes it gets frustrating to see all observational, retrospective studies (and similar) being disregarded because they are not randomized double-blind controlled trials.

There has never been a randomized double-blind controlled trial about smoking...of course, it's because it would not be ethical, we can’t ethically force people to chain-smoke for science!

Yet we have assumed (rightfully it seems) that correlation in this case equals causation.

Of course I am not saying that all the observational studies are born the same or that all the publishers have the same level of control over the information published...and yes it happened that I also have published something that of the finest quality.

But sometimes, for various reasons, observational, retrospective, meta analysis and everything that is not interventional...is all we have!! 😀😀😀

Have a great one!

[Broccoli24]

totally agree - discounting everything, unless it’s been through a randomised control trial is ridiculous.

There have never been randomised control trials about being run over by a car… but being run over by a car and death are, despite being retrospective, very highly correlated.

[Maxone73 in reply to Broccoli24]

😀😀 randomized bouble-blind is the golden standard, no doubt about it...but we cannot always have gold! Sometimes a (hopefully) good observational/retrospective study is all we can count on.