And wouldn't you know it, the title does not match the findings:
> Among these 6, none increased the odds of crossing the threshold for clinically significant symptoms by itself.
The linked article bizarrely focuses on cannabis, but they looked at "unplanned pregnancies", "maternal alcohol, marijuana and tobaccos use in early pregnancy", "pregnancy complications" and "birth complications". The only finding:
> Children exposed to multiple common, adverse prenatal events showed dose-dependent increases in broad, clinically significant psychopathology at age 9–10.
Where is the article lecturing us about the dangers of unplanned pregnancies so everyone can kneejerk react to it? (Also, why is this study mixing in alcohol use, which is of course already strongly proven to lead to all kinds of disorders..)
The only way I could be sane as a scientist (I'm an ex-scientist) is by ignoring large parts of the literature. In fact, I think one of the greatest skills a scientist can have is to know when not to read a paper or even really consider the title.
My own work in science was deeply quantitative and the bar for evidence was very high. Nearly every time I read a clinical paper (with the exception of professionally run clinical trials with a good statistical design and rigid adherence to protocols), it takes only a little time to find an "invalidating statement"- a description of methodology or a core assumption or a common mistake- for me to realize that investing further time is simply not worth it.
It doesn't mean that I necessarily believe the opposite of the paper, but rather fall back on my own prior assumptions/null hypothesis explanation.
It's dangerous to impute causality here given the potential for confounding environmental factors. Consider the chief finding that multiple such exposures had a more significant effect than individual exposure ... and what kind of home environment would tend to be associated with multiple of these exposures, including unplanned pregnancy, and use of alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco during pregnancy.
Also, note that this article is a press release from the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
> Among these 6, none increased the odds of crossing the threshold for clinically significant symptoms by itself.
The linked article bizarrely focuses on cannabis, but they looked at "unplanned pregnancies", "maternal alcohol, marijuana and tobaccos use in early pregnancy", "pregnancy complications" and "birth complications". The only finding:
> Children exposed to multiple common, adverse prenatal events showed dose-dependent increases in broad, clinically significant psychopathology at age 9–10.
Where is the article lecturing us about the dangers of unplanned pregnancies so everyone can kneejerk react to it? (Also, why is this study mixing in alcohol use, which is of course already strongly proven to lead to all kinds of disorders..)