Eh, you never know with studies. They did this one to serve as a classic counterexample: https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094
You can almost see the grin as they wrote up the results.
You can almost see the grin as they wrote up the results.
The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center ran a trial on parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft, and gave half the people jumping a placebo (empty backpack) instead of a parachute. No joke.
But then, reading other responses, and taking into account the name of the journal, and the fact that it did get published, I realized it's a very good example of a flawed study, where everybody see a flaw because it's evident, whereas in other studies a flaw of the same magnitude might be quite difficult to see (I could give quite a few examples from my field).
The motive behind the study:
> Parachutes are routinely used to prevent death or major traumatic injury among individuals jumping from aircraft. However, evidence supporting the efficacy of parachutes is weak and guideline recommendations for their use are principally based on biological plausibility and expert opinion.
Results :
> Parachute use did not significantly reduce death or major injury (0% for parachute v 0% for control; P>0.9). This finding was consistent across multiple subgroups.
Methodology might have an influence on the result:
> Compared with individuals screened but not enrolled, participants included in the study were on aircraft at significantly lower altitude (mean of 0.6 m for participants v mean of 9146 m for non-participants; P<0.001) and lower velocity (mean of 0 km/h v mean of 800 km/h; P<0.001).
Conclusions
> Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervention.
Implications
> Should our results be reproduced in future studies, the end of routine parachute use during jumps from aircraft could save the global economy billions of dollars spent annually to prevent injuries related to gravitational challenge.
Limitations
> However, the trial was only able to enroll participants on small stationary aircraft on the ground, suggesting cautious extrapolation to high altitude jumps.
I can already see the YouTube thumbnails: THIS IS THE STUDY PARACHUTE MAKERS DON'T WANT YOU TO SEE
> All authors suffered substantial abdominal discomfort from laughter.