Another example of reverse causation in MS is low vitamin D levels in pwMS that have been linked to MS disease activity. Because of this observation everyone has interpreted the results that vD supplementation is essential to control MS disease activity. In reality almost every inflammatory disease studied has shown low vD levels that are linked to the degree of inflammation. The most likely explanation is a consumptive hypovitaminosis D; i.e. inflammatory cells consume vD as part of their biology. Giving vD is unlikely to make any difference to their functioning or the outcome of the diseases concerned. We did a meta-analysis of the trials of vD supplementation that had been done to date and found no indication of vD being a DMT. Please note this comment does not apply to vD supplementation and MS prevention. Based on the literature and epidemiological studies vD plays a role in MS risk and there is an overwhelming case for doing vD prevention studies.
Baker & Dolgin. Cancer reproducibility project releases first results. Nature 18 January 2017.
Excerpts:
..... The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology launched in 2013 as an ambitious effort to scrutinize key findings in 50 cancer papers published in Nature, Science, Cell and other high-impact journals. It aims to determine what fraction of influential cancer biology studies are probably sound — a pressing question for the field. In 2012, researchers at the biotechnology firm Amgen in Thousand Oaks, California, announced that they had failed to replicate 47 of 53 landmark cancer papers. That was widely reported, but Amgen has not identified the studies involved.
..... The reproducibility project, by contrast, makes all its findings open — hence Ruoslahti’s discomfort. Two years in, the project downsized to 29 papers, citing budget constraints among other factors: the Laura and John Arnold Foundation in Houston, Texas, which funds the project, has committed close to US$2 million for it. Full results should appear by the end of the year. But seven of the replication studies are now complete, and eLife is publishing five fully analysed efforts on 19 January.
...... These five paint a muddy picture (see ‘Muddy waters’). Although the attempt to replicate Ruoslahti’s results failed, two of the other attempts “substantially reproduced” research findings — although not all experiments met thresholds of statistical significance, says Sean Morrison, a senior editor at eLife. The remaining two yielded “uninterpretable results”, he says: because of problems with these efforts, no clear comparison can be made with the original work.