Journal club: SUSTAIN 6 and its retinopathy signal — does this still hold? posts 61–67

I have been on both sides of the SUSTAIN 6 argument in this category within eighteen months, which should tell you how strong the evidence for either side is.

One caution on SUSTAIN 6: everything above assumes the underlying documentation is what it claims to be. That assumption is doing real work and is rarely stated.

Answering the question post #59 raises rather than the one it answers.

The baseline characteristics table is the single most useful page for the questions that get asked here, because it tells you who the result applies to.

I would be glad to be shown a cleaner way of putting this.

The arithmetic in post #63 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.

Whatever the answer on SUSTAIN 6 turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, invite the correction.

The thing about SUSTAIN 6 that took me longest to accept is that a plausible mechanism is not evidence of an effect. It is a reason to look, not a result.

Fine by me. I had wanted a stronger conclusion and there is not one available.

Post #63 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.

Where the group cannot agree, record the disagreement rather than resolving it by seniority. The recorded disagreement is more honest and more useful later.

The answer changed when I changed how I was measuring, which was informative.