Footnotes

• Twitter @carlheneghan, @JKAronson

• Contributors CH conceived the article and both authors contributed equally to its drafting.

• Funding This study was funded by Evidence Synthesis Working Group is part of the National Institute for Health Research School for Primary Care Research (NIHR SPCR) (project number 390).

• Competing interests CH holds grant funding from the NIHR School of Primary Care Research Evidence Synthesis Working Group (project 390) and the NIHR Oxford BRC. He is editor-in-chief of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine and an NIHR Senior Investigator. He is Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM), which jointly runs the EvidenceLive Conference with the BMJ and the Overdiagnosis Conference with some international partners, which are based on a non-profit model. JA has written and edited articles and textbooks on adverse drug reactions, including Meyler’s Side Effects of Drugs (16th edition, 2016), its companion volumes the Side Effects of Drugs Annuals, and Stephens’ Detection and Evaluation of Adverse Drug Reactions (6th edition, 2011). He is an associate editor of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine and a member of the CEBM (see above).

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.