ReviewThe Journal of infectious diseases2025
Mendelian Randomization and Infection: Pitfalls and Promises.
Review in The Journal of infectious diseases, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global burden of pertussis: An analysis of trends and the emergence of an immunity gap.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2026Article
- Early-life infections and life course health and disease in the EU child cohort network.European journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Single-cell profiling reveals context-dependent immune regulation shared by sepsis and systemic lupus erythematosus.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Mendelian randomization (MR) is an increasingly common study design in infectious diseases (ID). It holds promise for identifying causes and consequences of infections where conventional epidemiology has struggled, and can highlight plausible drug targets, as shown in successful coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) trials (baricitinib, tocilizumab). However, many current applications provide limited insight due to violations of core assumptions, yielding uninterpretable results. This article reviews MR principles, assumptions, and specific challenges in ID. We highlight examples violating key assumptions, noting that MR studies using infection as an exposure are particularly prone to bias compared to using infection as an outcome. We discuss the future of MR in ID, emphasizing appropriate application to address causal questions unanswerable by other methods and capitalize on emerging opportunities where MR can provide unique insights.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.