I would be most grateful for advice on interesting clinical cases where interventions have been approved based on hypothesis test results from high-quality RCTs, but where it has subsequently been discovered that the hypothesis test results corresponded to false positives. I am particularly interested in cases where, despite the positive RCT finding, the scientific rationale behind the hypothesis was later discredited.
Many thanks in advance!
You would have to go very far back, I think, to the era before systematic reviews, and even there the problem was more generalisation of RCT findings to groups that hadn't been included in the trial, such as the use of beta-blockers for hypertension in older patients.
The only case I can think of where there were positive results, but the underlying rationale was later discredited was the Paris streetscape. After the cholera epidemic in (?) 1832, they demolished slums, widened streets and installed sewers to reduce exposure to 'miasma' (foul air, believed to cause cholera). It worked, but not for the reasons they thought.
Ioannidis JPA (2005) Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. PLoS Med 2(8): e124. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
Probably this article answers the question about false-positive result, Bias etc
Thanks for your comments, Ronán. I am still searching and will aim to share some final thoughts with you fairly soon.
Thanks for the suggestion, Bhogaraju. This paper has a very compelling, but also, incredibly bold, title ("Why Most Published Research Findings Are False"). With reference to this particular paper, Leek and Jager ['Is most published research really false?' (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/04/27/050575.full.pdf)] advise us that "The paper contains no real data, it is purely based on a theoretical argument about the behavior of scientists and how they choose hypotheses to study." I had already checked myself before finding this independent viewpoint. It is more difficult than might be supposed from reading Ioannidis's paper and other reproducibility literaure to get any concrete examples to match my original query.