Randomized controlled trials: when the gold standard leaves you with fool’s gold
If I told you that I read a randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled trial conducted over 5 years and carried out in over 18,000 participants, is there any scenario under which you would not believe it to be an excellent trial?
Studying Studies: Part IV – randomization and confounding
Randomization helps us in our quest to not fool ourselves. Confounding? Not so much.