The claimed effect size is about a zillion times higher than is plausible
One interesting issue with plausible effect sizes is that they are <i>very</i> context dependent.<p>During a graduate seminar, someone asked for a show of hands for people who thought a relative risk of 1.10 (i.e. the exposed are 10% more likely to develop a disease than the unexposed) was a big deal.<p>Very few of the infectious disease epidemiologists raised their hands. We are often used to double-digit effect sizes for our risk factors (HPV and cervical cancer, a particular exposure in a foodborne outbreak, etc.)<p>The cancer epidemiology folks were like "Yeah, that's a pretty big deal, and worth digging into."<p>The environmental epidemiology folks were like "Are you kidding? There are going to be lawsuits. Congressional hearings. Maybe arrests."