Matt Elrod 🇨🇦

That Alberta study used to claim closing the Red Deer supervised consumption site improved outcomes? A new peer-reviewed paper just raised SERIOUS questions about its credibility. Researchers identified major methodological problems, questionable assumptions, problems with the comparison group, failure to properly account for other service changes, and what they describe as misleading statements about the findings. But here's another part that deserves attention: The critique also identifies potential CONFLICTS OF INTEREST that were not disclosed in the original study, and more than 25 Canadian researchers signed a request asking for the original paper to be RETRACTED. This matters because the study wasn't just sitting unnoticed in an academic journal. Its findings were publicly promoted by Alberta's Minister of Mental Health and Addiction as evidence supporting the province's approach. To be clear, the new critique doesn't prove closing the site made things worse, it says the original research cannot reliably establish that closing it made things better. When research is being used to justify public policy, methodological flaws and potential undisclosed conflicts of interest aren't minor details. They're exactly the kind of details the public deserves to know about. If the evidence doesn't hold up to scrutiny, stop presenting it as settled evidence. Full stop. 🛑 Link 🖇️ sciencedirect.com/science/ar…