Discussion of “quantifying publication bias in meta‐analysis” by Lin et al.

Summary Inspection and analysis of funnel plots cannot reliably identify publication and reporting bias, the non‐publication of results that are not statistically significant. Instead, researchers should thoroughly and systematically search available information sources such as databases, registries and unpublished reports. Even then, it is not possible to ever know whether a systematic review has uncovered all available studies, but the search can inform attempts to construct plausible statistical models of the missing data mechanism.