You have all heard comments online about "doing your own research". Well here I encourage you to do your own research using the very best evidence based sources. 

Some scientists argue against people doing their own research which I regard as a bit negative, patronising and elitist but in a spirit of free debate I offer some differing views on the merits of "doing your own research" here and here. Whilst the danger of reinforcing prejudices is very strong  (what psychologists call "confirmation bias"), I do believe people can and should be encouraged to engage with high quality scientific literature.  Of course, to fully understand a technical paper can require training (that is why science degrees take a long time) but a layperson can readily get the jist of many papers. 

 

Peer reviewed scholarly articles

Academic research is typically subject to peer review where other scientists critic work and check it is up to scratch prior to publication. Indices to be peer reviewed scholarly work can be found at Google Scholar and Web of Science. 

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Abstracts of many old scientific papers (and sometimes the entire paper depending on your access rights and the age of the paper) can be found at JSTOR. You can always contact the author of a paper and ask for a copy as well. In my experience most scientists will be happy to propagate their work. 

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Medical Sources

Randomized control trials (RCTs) are the highest quality scientific research where new treatments are tested in patients experimentally in comparison to control patients (i.e. patients who receive no treatment and who act as a benchmark). Drugs and other interventions have to be legally tested for safety and effectiveness before coming into widepread use. The results of such experiments are normally published as peer reviewed journals. Here is an example of a trial for Ivermectin as an anti-helminthic (dewormer). Just because Ivermectin is an effective de-worming agent does not make it an effective antiviral agent, worms and viruses are not the same! Just as chocolate is a poison for dogs but not for us!    

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Meta-analysis

The effectiveness of new treatments across multiple RCTs can be assessed by means of meta-analysis, a statistical analysis that combines the reported effects across all the relevant experiments. Some of the very best meta-analyses are undertaken by the Cochrane Institute. So if you really want to to see whether there is evidence for Ivermectin treating COVID-19 then look here. 

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Last modified: Jan. 2022. C.G.M. Paxton

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