The Great John Ioannidis on the Terrible Science During Covid

The Stanford conference on pandemic science was always going to be historic, but John Ioannidis took the closing remarks to another level. As the room buzzed with the weight of the day's discussions, Ioannidis—internationally respected for his groundbreaking work on scientific evidence—gave a fitting final word on what we'd learned and, more importantly, where science goes from here.

A Collision of Quantity and Quality

We all saw it: the unprecedented explosion of trrible scientific papers during COVID-19. It felt like every day, another wave of ridiculous new studies hit the journals, pushing the policy boundaries of what we thought was possible in real time. Vaccines that went from lab to arm at lightning speed, new treatments like dexamethasone gaining approval through adaptive trials—it was scientific progress at its most rapid - and a LOT of it was wrong.

Ioannidis didn’t sugarcoat the downside. He called out what many had whispered: "horrible" quality in much of the COVID-19 research. The rush to publish, he said, sometimes meant throwing quality control out the window, resulting in findings that, while well-intentioned, were often unreliable.

How to Fix the Future of Science

Ioannidis isn't just here to criticize, though. His focus is on how we fix this, how we make science stronger and more useful, particularly in times of crisis. He laid out a path forward—one that echoes the fundamental principles of good science that somehow got lost in the panic of the pandemic. First on the list? Tackle real problems. Instead of generating more noise, research should focus on solving the urgent issues already in front of us. He also hammered home the need for honesty about what we actually know and don’t know, pointing out that too many conclusions were drawn prematurely during the pandemic.

But his strongest point may have been the need for real-world data over models. Ioannidis loves models as much as anyone—he's built plenty of them—but he was adamant that data from the ground, from the real experiences of people, is what should drive decisions, not theoretical projections.

The Human Cost

He spoke from the heart about healthcare workers, calling them the unsung heroes of the pandemic. These professionals, he said, faced a "double crisis." While the world debated models and policy, it was these people who dealt with the human toll—often without the support they deserved.

A Plea for Open Science

Throughout his remarks, Ioannidis returned to a central theme: transparency. From lab data to funding sources, from the raw numbers behind studies to the potential biases of researchers—he argued that only by laying everything out in the open can we build a better, more reliable scientific foundation. And he's walking the talk: Ioannidis has declined funding for his own COVID-19 work, except for one honorarium, which he donated to children's charities. He even admitted, with characteristic humility, that many of his own findings might be wrong—and he challenged others to improve on his work.

The Way Forward

The pandemic showed us what science can do when it's pushed to the limit, but it also exposed the cracks in the system. Ioannidis’s closing remarks were a clarion call for scientists to do better—not just by pumping out more papers but by making sure the research they produce is useful, transparent, and, most importantly, accurate.

We may have gotten vaccines in record time, but as Ioannidis reminded us, the real victory will come when we learn from the chaos of these last few years and build a scientific culture that values quality over quantity, people over models, and truth over speed.