You're forgetting the prostate cancer story blamed fresh whole fish
Which version of the story? So many rehashes with tiny details changed to avoid plagiarism....in any case, the original Vit E + selenium study did not track fish oil supplement use *or* fish consumption....it wasn't designed to do that, so nobody has a clue where the EPA/DHA found in the blood came from, when it was consumed relative to the blood draw....the data is utterly useless for trying to prove cause and effect, just as Dr. Sears stated.
The authors made a (intentional?) fatal error in logic:
A (+) B = C
is not equivalent to the statement
A (and) B = C
the latter one is the only valid statement anyone can make from the raw data, meaning nothing can be concluded, as either A or B may be the culprit, but you cannot determine which one actually was responsible (if either were).