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I don't think there are any good studies in that group either. I suspect he is referring to himself - being an exercise junkie. I rather suspect that like Garner he thinks n=1 is low quality evidence but n=me is top whack incontrovertible stuff.

I guess his vignette biography in the Lancet gives us some answers. I think we saw this before: A general practitioner for many years, Glasziou is especially interested in non-drug research (and is helping to create the Handbook of Non-Drug Interventions), which, due to its lack of commercial...

Yes but why was he acknowledged - what for? Why was he giving advice in this area or, as it says, providing 'additional information'. Why does Glasziou say we know exercise works - from clinical experience? Surely you only move from advisor to participant if you have some sort of finger in the pie?

Chalmers: the Godfather Astrid Austvoll-Dahlgren: Norwegian Institute of Public Health Andrew Oxman: Tovey/Fretheim exchange Allen Nsangi: working with Oxman at Oslo Paul Glasziou: author on previous exercise review with Larun Loai Albarqouni: works with Glasziou - a successor to Hilda. David...

That is a fair point. Although I also agree with those who see use of Cochrane as often a sticky label on an existing view. I absolutely agree that a better group of authors would be desirable. Having a physio assessing whether a rag bag of exercise trials can justify employing a physio is...

It is encouraging to read that so well put. I suppose the word 'controversial' is redundant!

Not quite either. I think we may have to accept under the circumstances that to have people who believe in therapies involved may get things further forward than not. A key point here is maybe that the right answer to the review - that the evidence is no good - has already been admitted by the...

Hilda has partly answered this herself. I think a proportion of the workforce involved would have been non-negotiable in practice. The real task here is to confront Cochrane on its own 'cognitive dissonance'. I think the way to do that is to mix all the disparate viewpoints, including one or two...

The reason being?

So what on earth has that to do with remarks about objectivity and cultural differences and all that stuff? I don't buy that as a response at all I am afraid. I would echo @InfiniteRubix 's echo of what I said. This is really serious legal stuff. I actually think that in the context of the...

This causes me serious concern @Hilda Bastian. What we need from the exercise review is the best possible judgment on whether or not a set of trials reflect some real beneficial effect specific to certain treatments. Whether or not they do have an effect is a matter of fact, even if very...

I think the problem is that these studies did not find low grade inflammation in ME. The second study sounds as if it did but it actually had no controls so tells us nothing about ME having low grade inflammation. It talks about correlations with symptoms but although it picks out the few...

There are a number of autoantibodies for which we see little if any fall in any patients with rituximab - antibodies to Sm, RNP, Ro (Sjogren's) for instance. Lupus has a mix of antibodies that fall nicely (anti-DNA) and once that don't like Sm. If ME were autoantibody driven it would presumably...

I agree with Hutan. In fact I would go much further. Anyone not fully conversant with the reasons why PACE is no good is not competent to do this review. You don't ask people who do not understand plumbing to service a central heating system. I could muster up ten people who are conversant...

Technically speaking I think the philosophy behind combined use of objective and subjective measures for arthritis is that the subjective measures of pain, stiffness, swelling and tenderness (subjective either to the patient or the assessor) are primary but need to be corroborated by objective...

Yes, I am rather hoping that Hilda realises she should never have raised that!

This is a valid argument Hilda raised some time ago. But the other side of it is this: There is no point in doing a systematic review of evidence of efficacy of a treatment unless you think you may find some reliable evidence of efficacy. If you don't find any there is no reason to suggest the...

This is worryingly muddled. That many treatments are used for back pain is a fact, not something to have an opinion ion about. That there is not one treatment proven to be more effective than another is a reasonable opinion - but in what way is it a rebuttal of the criticism? It isn't. That it...

It is an intriguing idea. But if you are testing whether or not an information package is valid then to assume it is 'education' and an alternative' sham education' begs a very big question. If the sham group had done better then presumably it would have been real education and the test sham. I...

I mean less. I diet that way and it always works with effort. I agree that surgery things and fatty things like crisps can be addictive but as long as you eat less of everything than before you can guarantee to get into negative balance. I have talked about weigh to countless patients and...