When "Studies" Aren't Conclusive to a Question

[Isaac]

This kind of thing halfway bothers me, halfway makes me chuckle,

Cardiac arrest in athletes did not increase during pandemic, study finds

Neither vaccines nor the virus prompted an increase in the number of cardiac arrests, contrary to misinformation that has circulated repeatedly.

www.nbcnews.com

that people believe such a 'study' can put to bed a question.

For example, this study which purports to decide the question of whether sports-related cardiac problems did or didn't rise during COVID, uses, as the 'pre-covid' data,
"Prospective surveillance was conducted from 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2018 through the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research in collaboration with national sports organisations"

But any database person should immediately see the problem here. How do we know who is reporting what? Especially since a lot of the heart problems we anecdotally heard about during COVID was in very young athletes, not necessarily "national sports organizations", how do we have any idea that every athletics organization in the world was actually reporting to this 'surveillance program' in the first place? The very places we anecdotally saw heart problems arise - little league, high school - would quite possibly not belong to an organization that just so happened to report this information to that particular organization.

The study puts nothing "to rest", as it claims. And this is why quoting studies is often a waste of time

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Can't argue with your position, Isaac. But I have a different take on it, having done some advanced chemistry statistical analyses a few times. Taking random statistical readings will always tell you something, but the usual way to do this kind of study is to assign a test group and a control group. Since the control group would be humans who potentially face more serious risk, there would be an (un-)ethical component to the study that should prevent it from being initiated. Since the reporting phase was uncontrolled, the potential sample cannot be generalized. The correct conclusion is that among those who reported getting COVID which was later confirmed by laboratory tests, there was no apparent heart health variation between the "got sick" and "didn't get sick" groups. That is a very narrow finding.

 

[moke123]

The very places we anecdotally saw heart problems arise - little league, high school - would quite possibly not belong to an organization that just so happened to report this information to that particular organization.

The data includes middle and high schools, colleges, semi pro, pro, Olympic, and Youth Leagues. I would assume youth leagues includes little league baseball.

 

[AccessBlaster]

What will be really interesting is when the new administrations science, collides with the old administrations science. We been told to accept the science, science is not political this will be fun.

 

[Isaac]

The data includes middle and high schools, colleges, semi pro, pro, Olympic, and Youth Leagues. I would assume youth leagues includes little league baseball.

View attachment 118731

And you think every one of those little places reported every event to that particular surveillance association?

And no, the pre-Covid data was only national sports organizations. Look at the citation for that data, then follow the link for it to that study.
Possibly every single small group reported up through that national sports organization, but it's just a wild guess to say they all did, or anywhere close.

 

[moke123]

And you think every one of those little places reported every event to that particular surveillance association?

And no, the pre-Covid data was only national sports organizations. Look at the citation for that data, then follow the link for it to that study.
Possibly every single small group reported up through that national sports organization, but it's just a wild guess to say they all did, or anywhere close.

Not that I care about the subject, maybe I'm reading their demographics wrong but I doubt a 10-12 year old is playing pro sports and isn't the little league a national sports organization?

 

[Isaac]

Not that I care about the subject, maybe I'm reading their demographics wrong but I doubt a 10-12 year old is playing pro sports and isn't the little league a national sports organization?

View attachment 118743

I was thinking more about schools - junior high, high schools. Are they all reporting to that specific surveillance team, I think it's impossible to say but if we were to hazard a guess, the most reasonable one would be 'No'.

You can build the coolest output tool in the world, but it's all about the input and at the very least, the study should have delved into that in much more detail if they wanted people to believe that every incident got reported. I see this lacking a lot in studies, actually, the assumption that all positive hits are being recorded in the first place.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

isn't the little league a national sports organization?

International, or at least the USA national organization has close ties to other national organizations.

Forgive me, but there is grounds for a moment of local pride since you brought it up. In 2019, the Little League World Series world champions were the young men from River Ridge, Louisiana, which is about 6 miles from where I live (give or take a mile). They beat a team from Hawaii for the USA title and then beat a team from Curacao for the world title. These young fellows had really hot bats and decent fielding. A couple of the players stood out among the rest by setting some batting records. When they came home with the trophies and the banner, they were treated like heroes. (Can you say "Big man on campus"?) They were invited to ride in the Mardi Gras parades and had a lot of parties thrown in their honor by proud parents... and by people who had money to spend on a party, needing only a small excuse in order to have one.

 

[moke123]

It cracks me up in my town the attention our H.S. Girls basketball team gets. Don't plan on going to the hardware store, lumber yard, or auto parts store when they are playing. There are about a dozen stores who close when their playing. The only way I know they're playing is the signs on the doors saying "Closed for B-Ball"