sean_dublin said:

The honest answer is that the effect is real, the magnitude is contested, and the individual variation is larger than either.

That reframing is the part I needed. Printing the relevant bit and taking it with me.

Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice. It is worth asking what the claim would look like if it were false. If nothing would look different, it is not a claim about the world and no amount of discussion will settle it.

Correct me if the detail matters more than I have assumed.

SarahChen_PharmD said:

It helps to ask what evidence would change your mind before you look at any.

This is where I part company with the consensus forming above. Pushing back on the consensus forming here. Consistency is not the same as correctness, and a board that agrees with itself quickly is usually agreeing with the first person who sounded certain.

One concrete data point for the thread. Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a trend.

Moderator note: two posts asking for a source have been merged into one. Please search the thread before asking again.