

New deworming reanalyses and Cochrane review - yomritoyj
http://blog.givewell.org/2015/07/24/new-deworming-reanalyses-and-cochrane-review/

======
yomritoyj
One of the errors the replication found was that the STATA code of the
original study had

matrix CLOSE_D = J([_N], 12, 1000)

when it should have been

matrix CLOSE_D = J([_N], 75, 1000)

When our public policy is based ultimately on results produced by code, I
think we must train our social scientists more systematically in programming
("no magic numbers") and have more public scrutiny of the code (this
replication happened 11 years after the original study).

------
thaumasiotes
Hey, this was just mentioned by slatestarcodex (
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/24/links-715-from-link-
whe...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/24/links-715-from-link-where-rocky-
peaks-climb-bleak-and-bare/) )

From that post:

> The movement was started by a large study which found that dewormed children
> were healthier and did better in school. The authors of that study recently
> released their data publicly (hooray! everyone should do this!) and some
> other scientists re-analyzed their statistics. They found no effect of
> deworming on exam scores or school attendance, leading the Guardian to write
> that New Research Debunks Merits Of Global Deworming Programmes (STOP USING
> THAT WORD) and Ben Goldacre to write a critical review on Buzzfeed. Around
> the same time, the Cochrane Collaboration did their own meta-analysis on all
> deworming research ever and found that “there is now substantial evidence
> that this does not improve average nutritional status, haemoglobin,
> cognition, school performance, or survival.” But deworming supporters
> Evidence Action accuse the skeptics of being in the pockets of Big Parasitic
> Worm, and Giving What We Can says they stand by their support for deworming.
> GiveWell agrees at great length.

(the original post includes links to all these things, not replicated here)

So I take it this article is GiveWell agreeing at great length. I'm inclined
to agree with GiveWell when they say this:

> because mass deworming is so cheap, there is a good case for donating to
> support deworming _even when in substantial doubt about the evidence_

For the same reasons it sounds ridiculous to accuse new research of being in
the pockets of Big Parasitic Worm, I think it makes sense to support cheap
deworming in the absence of any perceptible tangible effects. Maybe there are
effects that we have a hard time seeing. But -- maybe -- we just hate
parasitic worms. Maybe even poor people are that much happier to be parasitic-
worm free.

