UPDATE 9/9/19: The company that manufactures Daysy is now the subject of a legal investigation. More information is available here: http://www.khuranapc.com/daysy-investigation. If you purchased a Daysy, please be sure to read about the investigation and determine if you would like to speak with these lawyers to share your experience. (NOTE: as of 9/20/19 that link is no longer functional. I will share additional updates as they become available.)


In May 2019, 404 days after I submitted a commentary detailing egregious flaws in data collection and analysis of a study purporting to estimate contraceptive effectiveness of the Daysy thermometer -- that study was retracted from the journal Reproductive Health. The retraction note says: “Independent post-publication peer review has confirmed that there are fundamental flaws in the methodology which mean that the conclusions are unreliable due to selection bias and the retrospective self-reporting of whether pregnancies were intentional.”
 
Science reporter Stephanie Lee covered the retraction story in Buzzfeed. Prior writings had investigated Daysy and detailed unethical behaviors by Valley Electronics (Daysy’s manufacturer) – including that the company kicked people out of online forums for asking questions, and used manipulative language in their marketing materials. In a comment on PubPeer, I also detailed unethical behaviors by Valley Electronics.
 
I’m glad to have helped to remove junk science from the literature. Hopefully, fewer people will be made vulnerable to unintended pregnancy via misleading, unsupported claims. While the retraction was very important, it does not fully solve the problem. Elsewhere, I’ve described the concerning asymmetry between the rapid spread of misinformation on social media and the long, slow process of addressing misinformation in the scientific literature, and how this mismatch can ultimately impact public health.
 
So, I have more to say.

A few years ago, the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health asked me to give an "Amazing Alumni" lecture, as part of their 100th anniversary celebrations. I was beyond honored to be one of six alumni chosen to give a talk! I was asked to reflect on my career trajectory. Since most talks I do focus on research findings - it was a challenge (an intimidating one!) to put together a talk that was more personal. It was even more intimidating to deliver it to a room full of the people who taught me much of what I know about global public health!

I've worked on some controversial issues in sexual and reproductive health, so decided to make 'controversy' the theme. In retrospect, I'm annoyed I didn't sneak this Prince song in to the talk, but...live and learn.

It was a fun opportunity to reflect on some lessons learned so far in my career. The audio recording of my talk is posted here (a few minutes seem to be skipped near the end), and slides can be downloaded below.