FAME, glory and a modest academic salary can all be yours if you write an important scientific study. You might even change the world, as Michael Kremer and Edward Miguel found. They were the authors of an economics paper published in 2004 which showed that giving children deworming tablets increases their school attendance. The study sparked further research into cost-effective interventions in developing countries, all of which has led to millions of children being dewormed every year. Fame can also be won by those who debunk major studies. In July 2015, a team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tried to replicate Kremer and Miguel’ study, and found only “some evidence, with high risk of bias” for the original conclusions. Next came the headlines, then the counter-fame, and finally the accusations, back and forth: of researchers capitalising on fame and headlines. Spectators called it the “worm wars”. As the dust settled, it seemed that the core message – it is good to deworm children – had not, after all, been debunked. So how does one go about debunking a study properly?
