Toh, Sengwee; Platt, Richard

The authors respond:

We thank Dr. Chiolero¹ for his interest in our commentary.² We agree that observational data must be used with caution, and lots of data must be used with lots of caution. The concluding paragraph of the commentary echoes Dr. Chiolero’s point: we need to avoid the illusion that big data is a panacea for all the threats to the validity of observational studies.

Sengwee Toh

Richard Platt

Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA darrentoh@post.harvard.edu

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