More race-baiting garbage from JAMA.
The “study” is here. Drooling fake news NYTimes coverage is here (Web | PDF).
What you need to know or consider:
1. This is a meta-analysis… an analysis of improperly pooled results. By definition, meta-analysis a study of a lot of nothing. If any of the component studies actually showed anything, no meta-analysis would be needed.
2. Like the component studies, the meta-analysis produced a result that could most charitably be described as statistical noise. The other end of the spectrum is, of course, fraud. Noise level correlations, missing exposure data, relatively common health outcomes and no biological plausbility adds up to a trash analysis of other trash.
3. If the results were true (i.e., that heat and stuff in the air caused birth problems), ask yourself:
- Why is hot and filthy India, for example, teeming with people?
- Where were all the birth pre-term births, low birth weights and stillbirths in, say, heavily polluted 1950s and 1960s Los Angeles?
- While blacks and other poorer people do tend to have higher rates of adverse birth and heath outcomes, isn’t this more readily explained by socio-economic status and education?
JAMA is, of course, a political rag — not a medical journal. It is shamefully trying to surf the death of poor George Floyd.