Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial - BMJ

Vulcan59

SuperModerator
Moderator
FOTCM Member
:lol: Full paper

Abstract​

Objective To determine if using a parachute prevents death or major traumatic injury when jumping from an aircraft.

Design Randomized controlled trial.

Setting Private or commercial aircraft between September 2017 and August 2018.

Participants 92 aircraft passengers aged 18 and over were screened for participation. 23 agreed to be enrolled and were randomized.

Intervention Jumping from an aircraft (airplane or helicopter) with a parachute versus an empty backpack (unblinded).

Main outcome measures Composite of death or major traumatic injury (defined by an Injury Severity Score over 15) upon impact with the ground measured immediately after landing.

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. 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. However, the trial was only able to enroll participants on small stationary aircraft on the ground, suggesting cautious extrapolation to high altitude jumps. When beliefs regarding the effectiveness of an intervention exist in the community, randomized trials might selectively enroll individuals with a lower perceived likelihood of benefit, thus diminishing the applicability of the results to clinical practice.
 
I am not sure why this part of the article made me laugh so much :-P:

All participants were asked whether they would be willing to be randomized to jump from the aircraft at its current altitude and velocity. Potential study participants completed an anonymous survey using a survey app on the screening investigator’s phone or tablet. Responses were transmitted to an online database upon landing for later analysis.
 
It's satire. Read the footnotes:
  • Contributors: RWY had the original idea but was reluctant to say it out loud for years. In a moment of weakness, he shared it with MWY and BKN, both of whom immediately recognized this as the best idea RWY will ever have. RWY and LRV wrote the first draft. CS, DBK, JBS, EAS, and JLH provided critical review. RMD provided subject matter expertise. DSK took this work to another satirical level. All authors suffered substantial abdominal discomfort from laughter. RWY worried that BKN would not keep his mouth shut until the Christmas issue was published. All authors had full access to the data in the study and can take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. RWY is the guarantor. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted.

Picture caption: "Representative study participant jumping from aircraft with an empty backpack. This individual did not incur death or major injury upon impact with the ground"
1648032933901.png
edit: added photo caption
 
Is this for real?
The study is a bit ridiculous. Participants jumped from an aircraft that was on the ground. There’s no reason to perform this experiment, in my opinion it’s insane. Here’s the full write up.

 
The study is a bit ridiculous. Participants jumped from an aircraft that was on the ground. There’s no reason to perform this experiment, in my opinion it’s insane. Here’s the full write up.

Ben, like I said, the article is satire, written for a Christmas edition of the BMJ. :lol:
 
It reminded me of this study from years ago where "cereal tastes better with milk than with water."

The 10 Best Quotes From the Study That Proves Cereal Tastes Better With Milk Than Water​

At Pontificia University Católica in Santiago, Chile, important work is being done. Sick of people repeatedly insisting that corn flakes are delicious when swimming in a bowl of tap water (I guess?), a team of researchers embarked on a remarkably thorough examination of the effects of different liquids–2% milk, skim milk, and water–on breakfast cereal (both corn flakes and quinoa flakes). This is a real study, and we at PopSci spent real money and real time to read it.

Here are the ten best quotes from this study, which appeared in Volume 76, Issue 3 of the Journal of Food Science.

1. From the abstract, the brief summary that appears before the full article: “Keywords: breakfast foods, microstructure, milk soaking, quinoa”

Read: This article will be crazy.

2. “Most consumption methods of breakfast cereal flakes (BCF) involve mixing the flakes with milk of varying fat contents. Liquid uptake by breakfast cereals in the bowl is a relevant factor for consumption and acceptability, as it influences the texture and integrity of flakes. These changes could be expressed as a reduction in the force needed to disintegrate the flake as the soaking proceeds, a change that may be ascribable to alterations of its microstructure.”

Read: People put milk on cereal, because it tastes better.

3. “According to Pittia and Sacchetti (2008), intermolecular interactions in the flake’s matrix could be weakened by the plasticizer [water], leading to the solubilization of some components, and to a decrease in mechanical integrity.”

Read: Water makes cereal soggy.

4. “The cell-wall material density of a flake (ρS in g cm−3) was determined with a Helium picnometer (Accupyc 1330 series N◦ 2441, Micrometrics Instruments Inc., Norcross, Ga., U.S.A.) with a volume module of 12.03 cm3 and employing approximately 2.90 g of QF [quinoa flakes] and approximately 1.27 g of CF [corn flakes]. The density of the flake (ρf in g cm−3) was determined through the relationship between the individual weight and its volume (cm3).”

Read: ????

5. “Each type of flake was placed into a ceramic bowl and liquid nitrogen was poured on top to rapidly freeze the sample, thus minimizing adverse effects on the microstructure.”

Read: Does Nathan Myhrvold know about nitrogen-frozen quinoa flakes?

6. “Cold temperature was chosen in light of the high frequency of cold breakfast cereal consumption (Ganji and Kafai 2004).”

Read: Here we cite a study that tells us that corn flakes are typically served cold.

MKUZVQIDBKXCTR7P7LHQYTJH4A.png

Corn Flakes Soaking
7. “Maximum rupture force of cereals type A (cornstarch flake), B (rice starch flake), and C (wheat starch flake) were measured in the proportion of 10 g of cereals for every 100 g of milk 2%.”

Read: Hahaha “maximum rupture force.”

8. “Data and models showed that the RF [sogginess level] for BFP [haha, “breakfast flake products”] was lower when the flake was immersed in water than in milk. Sacchetti and others (2003) and Medina and others (2010) have suggested that during immersion in whole milk it is possible that a layer of lipids and casein micelles is deposited on the flake’s surface, which hinders liquid transfer into the interior, thus, retarding softening of the matrix.”

Read: Now we’re getting to it. Milk’s fat content shields the cereal from absorbing too much liquid!

9. “Considering that texture is the sensory and functional manifestation of the structural, mechanical, and surface properties of foods detected through the senses of vision, hearing, touch, and kinesthetic (Szczesniak 2002), it is important to study the textural perception of BFP by understanding the dynamics of the product in the consumer’s mouth as determined by their initial structure (Szczesniak 2002; Lenfant and others 2009).”

Read: People like their cereal when it’s crispy.

10. “The cross-sections of CF revealed an internal porous structure composed of several rounded air cells of different dimensions as reported also by Gondek and Lewicki (2006). Some large air cells protruded almost into the surface and were separated from it by a thin layer while other smaller air cells were embedded within a thick and dense solid matrix. Air cells seemed to be distributed within this continuous matrix.”

Read: Dude, have you ever looked closely at a corn flake? Like, really_ closely?

https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1750-3841.2011.02054.x
 
Or the grievance papers which were absolutely brilliant!


In one reply from paper reviewers:
"The reviewers were worried that we didn't respect the dogs' privacy, while we were inspecting their genitals."
:rotfl::lol2:

Joking aside, the situations as such in the video are not endemic for sociology and related fields, it's almost the same with more 'exact' disciplines like (geo)physics and biology, especially WRT climate change studies and recently in last 2y with the studies considering plandemic.
 
A good example of how people can be deceived with an acceptable hypothesis, but intentionally flawed testing method.
 
Back
Top Bottom