Citation
Hertz-Picciotto, Irva (2000). Invited Commentary: Shifting the Burden of Proof Regarding Biases and Low-Magnitude Associations. American Journal of Epidemiology, 151(10), 946-948.Abstract
The issue of what exactly are the limits of epidemiology is now on the radar screen of the entire field. Shapiro (1) has added his thoughts to the public discussion by describing a sensitivity analysis of reported associations between oral contraceptive use and breast cancer. He addresses diagnostic selection bias andinformation bias as possible explanations for small relative risks, demonstrating quite clearly that the overall association of 1.07 for ever use of oral contraceptives reported in a "collaborative reanalysis" of 54 studies could easily be due to a rather low magnitude of each of these biases.