Episode 78: Worm wars and mouth bacteria

Seconds out! Round one! Ding ding! And other boxing terms. We’ve found a topic on which Tom and Stuart actually disagree. Kind of. In this episode of The Studies Show, they use the examples of “the worm wars” (does deworming kids in developing countries help them stay in school?) and a new craze for “tooth bacteria” (can colonizing your mouth with a genetically-modified bacterium stop you getting cavities?) to argue about how we should make our minds up about uncertain—but potentially promising—medical treatments.

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. On the show this week we discuss one of the articles in their newest issue, on “the end of lead”—the history of countries slowly removing lead from pipes, paint, and the rest, and how much work still needs to be done. Find it, and a wealth of other fascinating free articles, at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* Tom’s Unherd article about the Worm Wars

* The famous 2004 paper that sparked the wars

* “Deworming Debunked”, from the BMJ

* The 2014 follow-up of the original dewormed Kenyan kids

* GiveWell’s re-analysis of both studies

* And another more recent analysis by the same org

* The third study in the same kids, from 2020

* 2019 paper on “resolving the worm wars”

* Scott Alexander’s article on “defying cavity”—on the Lumina bacteria

* Guy who claims the Lumina bacteria made him go blind

* Saloni Dattani’s useful thread on Lumina

* 90% of drugs in preclinical trials don’t make it to become medicine

* Tom’s frankly cruel tweet where he refers to Stuart as “Goofus”

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.