Possible alternate title: "People with early onset Alzheimer's frequently forget to get flu shots".
Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
51–60 of 159 posts
Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
#52There is a joke here about forgetting to get your flu vaccine
Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
#53Epidemiologist in training here... There are quite a few comments in this thread already jumping on the 'correlation != causation' train. While that is true, I'd like to clarify a couple things: 1. The journal article didn't suggest it was causal. But such a correlation with such a large population warrants publication and further research into causation. 2. literally the first thing that any epidemiologist would con…
> There are quite a few comments in this thread already jumping on the 'correlation != causation' train. Complaining about correlation not being causation is the perfect theme for the midwit meme. It's one of my pet peeves.
I’d say they should show evidence that they know what they’re talking about, but then I’d be accused of credentialism.
Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
#54Lots of discussion in this thread about the accuracy of the implied claim "vaccination can prevent Alzheimers", but not a lot about the correct course of action.
Which seems to me to be, unambiguously, you should absolutely be religious about getting your flu shot every year. The vaccine is known to be safe and with few side effects (or at least, safer than the actual flu, which is the bar that needs to be cleared.)
And even if it hasn't been conclusively proven that vaccines can avert Alzheimer's, you're at least putting yourself in the best possible cohort, right? Anyone familiar with Bayes' Theorem should be absolutely on board with this.
Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
At some point we (commenters on hacker news) should stop reflexively typing this in response to every study without reading the paper. From the abstract: > Propensity-score matching (PSM) was used to create flu-vaccinated and flu-unvaccinated cohorts with similar baseline demographics, medication usage, and comorbidities. If you want to argue that the authors did a bad job at this, for some reason, that would be a re…
But virtual HN karma points are so juicy! /s Sometimes HN can do this or turn simple topics into some crazy meta stuff… I’m telling you so many times some comments look like what I will find in a parody of HN and/or bring no real value to the discussion but are so articulated and counter arguing and expanding and what not. Heck half of the times those comments start a new paragraph mid comment with « Heck… ». And the…
Hey, I can add all the references so noone else has to:
- http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
- (honorable mention: https://xkcd.com/552/ - gets cited less often but is relevant nonetheless)
Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
#56Lots of discussion in this thread about the accuracy of the implied claim "vaccination can prevent Alzheimers", but not a lot about the correct course of action. Which seems to me to be, unambiguously, you should absolutely be religious about getting your flu shot every year. The vaccine is known to be safe and with few side effects (or at least, safer than the actual flu, which is the bar that needs to be cleared.)…
I will say, as someone with an egg allergy it isn't so black and white. Not everywhere carries alternative ways of getting flu vaccine, though hopefully post Covid mRNA versions will become more prevalent (assuming that version has the same impact, haven't read the article).
Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
#57Epidemiologist in training here... There are quite a few comments in this thread already jumping on the 'correlation != causation' train. While that is true, I'd like to clarify a couple things: 1. The journal article didn't suggest it was causal. But such a correlation with such a large population warrants publication and further research into causation. 2. literally the first thing that any epidemiologist would con…
I do not remember where I read it (probably xkcd) but it was that correlation is not casuation, though the numbers are doing big winks to you (or something like that) As a physicist who had to endure helping biologists with statistics and cooling down their enthusiasm: it make sense to have a deeper thought about the experiment. As parent wrote, there may be various reasons for the correlations, sometimes you have ra…
I like the phrasing, "Correlation correlates with causation because causation causes correlations".
Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
At some point we (commenters on hacker news) should stop reflexively typing this in response to every study without reading the paper. From the abstract: > Propensity-score matching (PSM) was used to create flu-vaccinated and flu-unvaccinated cohorts with similar baseline demographics, medication usage, and comorbidities. If you want to argue that the authors did a bad job at this, for some reason, that would be a re…
But virtual HN karma points are so juicy! /s Sometimes HN can do this or turn simple topics into some crazy meta stuff… I’m telling you so many times some comments look like what I will find in a parody of HN and/or bring no real value to the discussion but are so articulated and counter arguing and expanding and what not. Heck half of the times those comments start a new paragraph mid comment with « Heck… ». And the…
Maybe you should look into specifics of what exactly I am asking as the question, before terming it "crazy meta stuff".
I am trying asking valid questions, which may be wrong or someone will explain it better clearing my misconception. I will learn something new & be grateful. Win-win
What is your contribution by this rant exactly, except making yourself look absurd?
Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
#59Epidemiologist in training here... There are quite a few comments in this thread already jumping on the 'correlation != causation' train. While that is true, I'd like to clarify a couple things: 1. The journal article didn't suggest it was causal. But such a correlation with such a large population warrants publication and further research into causation. 2. literally the first thing that any epidemiologist would con…
I do not remember where I read it (probably xkcd) but it was that correlation is not casuation, though the numbers are doing big winks to you (or something like that) As a physicist who had to endure helping biologists with statistics and cooling down their enthusiasm: it make sense to have a deeper thought about the experiment. As parent wrote, there may be various reasons for the correlations, sometimes you have ra…
> where I read it (probably xkcd)
Yep, it's in the alt text for https://xkcd.com/552/
"Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."
Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
#60It's quite remarkable that an effect of this size on such a large group seems to have gone undetected for such a long time. As a layman, I would almost have expected geriatricians to have made the observation during their own practice.
Also quite remarkable that the flu vaccine seems to have a larger impact on the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease than it does on, well, influenza.