Search results

I really don't like the argument that publishing minutes stops debate. One research project that I ran we have quarterly 2 day meetings most of that time would be discussion and not minuted. But we also had a formal project meeting where decisions, finance, milestones, changes to the project...

I took that more as a comment that it is not the ICO's job to judge the integrity of the researchers and that comments made in the judgement were not intended to do that. I tend to agree that people in authority should have their judgement and integrity challenged. But I think the ICO shouldn't...

I have issues with the feasibility study because of the trying it on children first. But I think the ethics committee really go it wrong in terms of allowing the change fro a feasibility study to a full trial. They should have treated it as a new application - also checking things like power...

He strikes me as someone who is ambitious. I wonder if he just felt he had set up some initiatives and that was as far as he could get. Sometimes different skills (and interests) are needed to set things up and to keep them running.

I think political pressure to take the issues seriously is a good idea. If I remember they had no justification for dismissing Courtney's comments which included pointing out their own outcome switching. I think we need to be careful about the nature of the pressure. Basically they have done...

@Graham looked at the funding figures for his video a while ago

I think that is great. I think there are serious questions about the approval of the outcome switching and what was given as reasons to the committees.

This is a claim that the PACE team made at the time of the information tribunal as well. I think the only thing they have published is their very poor review of GET which includes PACE figures but they gave it a high rating (as a quality trial) but then they also switched their review outcomes...

I'm not aware of that one. Do you have any pointers to information about it?

I think it is worth remembering that when the countess of Mar raise PACE in the house of lords she seemed like a lone voice. Reading the Hansard transcript it seems to have switched with various MPs attacking PACE and just the minister basically reading out a statement from QMUL in defense of...

I'm interesting in this one because I thought exercise burns remarkably few calories. But I think the brain is one of the organs that uses the highest number of calories. Given what the brain does it is remarkably efficient. But then maybe sedentary jobs don't really involve much thinking? I...

Good point. [Edit] Yes that was the show I was thinking of. I only saw a couple of episodes and I suspect that they did some form of filtering rather that only showing certain shows. I thought it was interesting how unaware some people can be about things like that. I include myself in that...

Not quite on the hormone thing but some factors can play a huge part in weight gain and over-eating. I knew someone with polycistic ovarary syndrome who put on a lot of weight before it was diagnosed. It was due to insulin resistance which apparently gets worse the more weight you put on. The...

There was a reality TV program a while ago where they followed people who were struggling to loose weight. Whilst they were lying in that they were eating many more calories than they admitted to I don't think is was deliberate they were just snacking without thinking. They looked genuinly...

This has been their basic defense for the changes. My point is I think they pulled the wool over their mates eyes with the stats plan not specifying reasons just slipping in changes.

Neither does the statement appeal to authority in terms of saying who they got advice from. They could simply have said Peter 'what do you think about releasing data?' and got the response 'Well Peter, I think it would be inappropriate'.

I find it a really offensive term. People take part in clinical trials (with associated risks) because they want new treatments and to help the science move on to. When people talk of "data parasites" they are basically arguing that they own the data and should have rights to it so that they can...

I think it was in the stats analysis plan but could be elsewhere. They had a MS Access database along with the full data and then data for analysis loaded into Stata and SPSS.

The conclusions are something I was wondering about. Data sharing is really quite minimal hence it allows calculations to be checked but what is really needed is sufficient data to explore other questions and to combine data sets.

I also worry about diagnosis I believe quite a few people with MS are diagnosed with ME initially and they would be helped by Rituximab? Which is why we need the well designed trials.