George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 22/07/20269/n We then tested whether their result would stand if in Wales they only had hospital data, if they had the same study entry as us, etc: essentially we tested many of the biases of HES. Essentially, these decisions have an effect on absolute effects but NOT relative effects /cont 120
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 22/07/20267/n To test this, we limited our analyses to those who were plausibly vaccinated (e.g. only those 79+), and started follow up at 1 year post Sep 2013 (this would give ~6 months for the vaccine to work). This analysis was null /cont 130
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 22/07/20266/n We don't see any sex-specific effects for either shingles or dementia, unlike what has been previously reported for dementia. The *only* signal we saw was a very early signal at 1 year. This signal is probably implausible, because shingles vaccination doesn't happen instantly /cont 130
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 22/07/20264/n But we find *no* effect on dementia hospitalisations: −0.06 percentage points, 95% CI −0.40 to 0.27; p=0.72. The confidence intervals are reasonably tight on the absolute scale; and visually ⬇️ one cannot see any discontinuity. This was robust in many sensitivity analyses /cont 140
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 22/07/20263/n First, we show a robust effect on shingles diagnoses using this date of birth cut off - this accumulates over and is about the same relative effect as reported in the trials. Importantly, this is *hospital* coded shingles - which is ~10% of all shingles, so the outcome is rare. / cont 160
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 22/07/2026Does the (live) shingles vaccine protect against dementia? Fergus Hamilton and colleagues provide important evidence in a new preprint using hospital data from the whole of England in a regression discontinuity design from which we *don't* show evidence of a meaningful protective effect /cont 38245
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 28/03/2026Have seen thousands of Velvets covers and also saw the Velvet Underground be their own tribute band on two unforgettable nights at Edinburgh playhouse June 1993, but think Waldo’s Gift at Ritual Union 2026 Bristol got closer to the VU spirit than any others I’ve seen 060
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 26/01/2026Brilliant inaugural lecture by Professor Evie Stergiakouli on her career so far, @uob-ieu.bsky.social so lucky to have secured her talents right from its inception. Thx Evie! 0102
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 21/12/2025On a Wensleydale pilgrimage - geographically and back in time - to where and when epidemiology was about fieldwork (or practice) amongst real people in actual populations, and involved literally crossing fields … check out his beautifully written papers as a seasonal treat to yourself … 0121
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 14/11/2025Honoured to receive the 25th Anniversary MRC Millenium Medal. My mid-1980s epidemiological apprenticeship was at the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cardiff in the mid-1980s, and my senescence with the MRC IEU, closing in March 2028 🙏 MRC! @ukri.org @uob-ieu.bsky.social www.ukri.org/news/mrc-mil... 8566
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 01/11/2025Finally in Navi Mumbai located my favourite beer since first coming to work in India in 1992, it is increasingly difficult to find, and now often only the STRONG ~8% “premium” version the only one available 150
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 29/10/2025Reassuring to see a cow at a major road junction in Bangalore; after a third of a century of work trips to India most things have changed out of all recognition, but a silicon valley thriving bovine represents continuity 071
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 24/10/2025Are there earlier occurrences of groups being established to archive biological data to make them available for future analyses by researchers than this, which is from The British Association Committee on Biological Measurements, 1927? 163
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 25/09/2025Great to have @markmccarthy985.bsky.social at @uob-ieu.bsky.social giving a seminar tomorrow (Friday) at 12.30 online or in person www.bristol.ac.uk/integrative-... 185
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 12/09/2025"Triangulation: moving from correlations to causation", Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine Distinguished Lecture 2025, Thursday, October 16th, 5pm, in person or online www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/school-of-... 02317
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 11/09/20254/n It is a seminal "introduction to, and apology for, multistage models" (see the introduction below, surely you can't stop reading where it leaves off?) of vast subtlety & depth. The interlibrary loan of "The need for ignorance in cancer research" arrived and I read /cont 110
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 11/09/20251/n I first read this sitting on a stool in the HK Lewis medical bookshop on Gower Street soon after it came out; the book was outside my budget & the rest not so interesting. It felt like the 19th century in Lewis' anachronistic shop, there were hardly any customers /cont 110
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 22/07/2025Prescient words from the great Richard Levins in his 1996 Edinburgh Medal address “When science fails us”, a piece on why we need a dialectical epidemiology, ecology and agricultural science. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 031
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 09/06/2025The empty Colston plinth in Bristol with the original and new labelling 010
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 28/03/2025My favourite visual representation of Mendelism is below, but as always the story is more complex than it seems ieureka.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2022/07/15/t... 121
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 09/03/2025Is there a future for Mendelian randomization? 10th March 11.00 Canadian time, online and in person @mcgilluniversity.bsky.social, I'll discuss this and why - if I had been better read - I would have used the term "meiotic randomization" rather than "Mendelian randomization" in the initial papers 172
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 28/02/2025Contralateral cancers are an enigma: the unaffected organ is perfectly matched on exposures across life, yet despite this at older ages the risk of cancer in that organ is not much higher than a randomly selected organ from the same population. What can be happening? youtu.be/7rbsGpz9-XE 2145
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 21/02/2025Altos labs are apparently going to crack ageing (at least among billionaires) apparently .. here's how the great Clive McCay (who initiated the first calorie restriction studies in mice in the 1930s) envisaged progress would be made 040
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 28/01/2025Journals are packed full of papers reporting supposedly new epidemiological / statistical methods, though many never get used. In 2001 Shah Ebrahim and I considered this when asking "Epidemiology: is it time for to call it a day" in @IntJEpidemiol academic.oup.com/ije/article/... 0114
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 25/01/2025Google Scholar profiles are officially ridiculous - much as I like "10.15 Saturday Night", "Boys don't cry" etc ... 120
George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · 24/12/2024Cartoon I used ~30 years ago, following nonsense dietary epidemiology studies; the same cohorts continue to publish these, even though RCTs have so often shown their findings to be meaningless. Dark chocolate the most recent silly paper; a blog here ieureka.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2024/12/04/d... 65726