Worm Wars: The Anthology

(This post was updated on January 4, 2016.)

Over the last several weeks, tens of thousands of words have been published about a study on the benefits of deworming for Kenyan schoolchildren, about the benefits of deworming more generally, about replication in science and social science, and about the evidence base for development programs. More will surely be written. As you’ll see below, several blog posts seek to make sense of the hubbub.

For those engaged or interested in the debate, I provide links to the primary research documents as well as many of the responses.

The key research documents for the current round of the Worm Wars (there were earlier versions of the replication and responses to those, which I list below)

• The original paper – Miguel & Kremer’s Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities, Econometrica (2004)
• Aiken et al. – Re-analysis of health and educational impacts of a school-based deworming programme in western Kenya: a pure replication, International Journal of Epidemiology (2015)
• Davey et al. – Re-analysis of health and educational impacts of a school-based deworming programme in western Kenya: a statistical replication of a cluster quasi-randomized stepped-wedge trial, International Journal of Epidemiology (2015)
• Response to Aiken et al. & Davey et al. by Hamory Hicks, Kremer, and Miguel, International Journal of Epidemiology (2015)
• Hargreaves et al. (replication authors' response to Hamory Hicks, Kremer, and Miguel) -- Authors’ Response to: Deworming externalities and school impacts in Kenya, International Journal of Epidemiology (2015)
• Newest Cochrane review – Taylor-Robinson et al. – Deworming school children in developing countries (2015)

The media articles that prompted a host of current responses

• Goldacre – Scientists Are Hoarding Data And It’s Ruining Medical Research – BuzzFeed, 2015
• Boseley – New research debunks merits of global deworming programmes – The Guardian, 2015

Responses, interpretation, and making sense of the responses and interpretation (and it’s worth scanning the comments below the posts; much of discussion is there)

• Blattman (Columbia U) – Dear journalists and policymakers: What you need to know about the Worm Wars (7/23/2015)
• Evidence Action blog – Worms Win, Kids Lose? Our Statement (7/23/2015)
• Wood (3ie) -- Replication research promotes open discourse (7/23/2015)
• Kremer & Miguel (Harvard / Berkeley) – Understanding Deworming Impacts on Education (7/24/2015)
• Berger (GiveWell blog) – New deworming reanalyses and Cochrane review (7/24/2015)
• Özler (Development Impact blog) – Worm Wars: A Review of the Reanalysis of Miguel and Kremer’s Deworming Study (7/24/2015)
• Blattman (Columbia U) – The 10 things I learned in the trenches of the Worm Wars (7/24/2015)
• Taub (Vox.com) – This academic debate about worms has an important lesson for the future of global poverty (7/27/2015)
• Belluz (Vox.com) – Worm wars: The fight tearing apart the global health community, explained (7/28/2015)
• Kremer & Miguel (Thomson Reuters blog) -- The scientific case for deworming children (7/29/2015)
• Clemens & Sandefur (Center for Global Development) – Mapping the Worm Wars: What the Public Should Take Away from the Scientific Debate about Mass Deworming (7/30/2015)
• Humphreys (Columbia U) -- More on worms (8/1/2015)
• Gertler (UC Berkeley) – Good Science Gone Wrong? (8/3/2015)
• Harford (Oxford) – Worming Our Way to the Truth: Why Does Such a Large Policy Push Need to be Based on a Handful of Clinical Trials? (8/4/2015)
• Leach (Guardian) -- Explainer: Where were you in the #wormwars? (8/5/2015)
• Duflo & Karlan (IPA blog) -- Deworming: An informed debate requires a careful look at the data (8/6/2015)
• White (Linked In) -- What analysis is needed to settle the worm wars? (8/6/2015)
• An Open Letter: The Case for Deworming Children (8/8/2015), signed by a variety of organizations and individuals
• Baird, Hamory Hicks, Kremer, & Miguel (VoxEU) -- Mass deworming: (Still) a best buy for international development (8/11/2015)
• The Economist -- How to debunk a study (8/11/2015)
• BBC Radio -- More or Less: Behind the Stats, hosted by Tim Harford (8/14/2015) - from 7:45 to 16:36 in the audio segment
• Baird (World Economic Forum) -- What are the economic benefits of mass deworming of children? (8/14/2015)
• World Health Organization (WHO) updated recommendations (8/17/2015) versus one year earlier: Cites new Cochran study but recommends more expansive treatment
• Humphreys (Columbia U) -- What Has Been Learned from the Deworming Replications: A Nonpartisan View (8/18/2015) 
• Belluz (Vox.com) -- The author of a contentious study on deworming finally speaks out (8/18/2015) -- Interview with Michael Kremer, co-author of the original study
• Gelman (AndrewGelman.com) -- Macartan Humphreys on the Worm Wars (8/18/2015)
• McDonald (BBC News) -- Is it worth treating everyone who might get worms? (8/19/2015)
• Mwandawiro (Gates Foundation blog) -- A New Perspective on the War on Worms (9/1/2015)
• Aiken & Davey (video of presentation at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) -- Results Reconsidered: Challenges of Re-Analyzing a Stepped-Wedge Trial with Health and Educational Outcomes (9/22/2015)
• Healthcare Triage video -- Replication, Re-Analysis, and Worm Wars (9/29/2015)
• Hicks, Kremer, & Miguel in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases -- The Case for Mass Treatment of Intestinal Helminths in Endemic Areas (10/22/2015)
• Walson editorial in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases -- Don't Shoot the Messenger (10/22/2015)
• Montresor et al in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases -- Methodological Bias Can Lead the Cochrane Collaboration to Irrelevance in Public Health Decision-Making (10/22/2015)
• de Silva et al in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases -- Cochrane Reviews on Deworming and the Right to a Healthy, Worm-Free Life (10/22/2015)
• Miguel, Kremer, & Hicks -- Comment on Macartan Humphreys’ and Other Recent Discussions of the Miguel and Kremer (2004) Study (12/21/2015)

Key research documents for the last round of the Worm Wars (i.e., when the draft replications emerged, in 2014)

• Pre-published Replication plan for Aiken et al. and Davey et al.
• Aiken et al. -- Reanalysis of health and educational impacts of a school-based deworming program in western Kenya -- Part 1: pure replication (this is the original version of the replication, published on the 3ie website (10/2014)
• Hamory Hicks, Kremer, & Miguel -- Estimating deworming school participation impacts and externalities in Kenya: A Comment on Aiken et al. (2014), response by the original authors
• Davey et al. -- Reanalysis of health and educational impacts of a school-based deworming program in western Kenya -- Part 2: alternative analyses (again, original version published on 3ie website (12/2014)
• Hamory Hicks, Kremer, & Miguel -- Estimating deworming school participation impacts in Kenya: A Comment on Aiken et al. (2014b), response by the original authors

The Data (in case you would like to replicate some or all of these papers yourself)

• Data to replicate Miguel & Kremer (the original paper) -- scroll down the page to "Supplementary Materials and Data"
• Data to replicate Davey et al. (the replication)

More research papers (mentioned in some of the above)

• Ahuja et al. (and the et al. includes Kremer and Miguel) – When Should Governments Subsidize Health? The Case of Mass Deworming, World Bank Economic Review (2015)
• Baird et al. – Worms at work: Long-run impacts of a child health investment, working paper (2015)
• Bleakley – Disease and Development: Evidence from Hookworm Eradication in the American South, Quarterly Journal of Economics (2007)
• Croke – The long run effects of early childhood deworming on literacy and numeracy: Evidence from Uganda, working paper (2014)
• Ozier – Exploiting externalities to estimate the long-term effects of early childhood deworming, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 7052 (2015)

And for the deep dive, there’s always the Twitter firestorm.
 
Let me know what I’m missing; I am updating this post. 


Note: The image at the top of this blog post was created by me using Wordle.net, using the content of many of the articles linked to above.