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[my bold] I find that statement rather enlightening, as it strongly indicates a potentially unhealthy relationship between Cochrane and its reviewers. This is a major issue in play, and DV is striving to avoid falling out with AF. To me this strongly suggests there are almost certainly many...

Which rather fits with the touchy feely science.

"worrying precedent for scientific evidence being over-ridden by the opinions of activists" ... no, flawed, low quality evidence being justifiably challenged by good scientific reviewers. "entering an era of bullying scientists when lobby groups disagree with the results" ... no, challenging...

Is this at the heart of the problem? Are Cochrane terrified they will open the floodgates to many other of their reviews being validly challenged? Have the authors (and others?) possibly pointed this out to them and how if their review gets pulled then "moves could be taken" to expose others...

I would suggest that the dog turd is actually much better, being tangible evidence the dog produced something clearly important to its ongoing health.

Dogma is not engagement.

Done.

Finally got around to watching this. Dead impressed. Great presentation that covers many of the important issues that the innocently uninformed need to be educated about. And Jessica's engaging style means you probably will want to watch anyway, and pick up the info along the way.

Sorry @DokaGirl. I'm very well aware that food allergies are no fun at all, but your analogy here did give me a chuckle ... :).

Their oft-cited claim that GET is safe provided it is administered properly, totally misses a massively important fact - no one, them especially, knows how to do it 'properly' for someone with ME, so cannot be safe - there is no way. The assertion rests on the premise they back off activity...

Yes it is a straw man argument, and a very subtle one. These people excel at presenting them in extremely plausible-sounding ways. It is often the case that people use straw man arguments without realising they are doing so. But these people do it with cold diversionary precision, which I find...

Given it is based on being smallest change in clinical outcome deemed to be important, then I presume it would be valid to compare the difference between a control arm having no intervention, and a trial arm with the intervention; the difference measured would be the same as the 'D' in MCID...

[my bold] How can a scientific paper include the above? Are they suggesting that adverse safety events would not constitute worsening of symptoms? You just cannot make a concrete assertion like "did not" if in the next sentence saying you had insufficient information to draw firm conclusions...

I think it's more than arrogance @MEMarge, I think it's cold, calculating misdirection. Making a false comparison with one very reasonable thing, hoping your audience do not notice there is a difference and only see the apparent similarity. Then argue your case based on the presumption of a...

Yes, I fully understand the principle of control arms and measuring differences, so that common mode effects get cancelled out. And that the PACE notion of control was flawed, to the point they stopped calling it a controlled trial. I was really just observing that MS seemed to be suggesting...

To be fair I knew a good friend/colleague who lost his long hard fight with cancer some while back now. He and his wife openly told me and others that the counselling they both received was of tremendous help with their coping; said they did not know how they would have been managing without.

Hopefully also act as a test case and trigger for further reassessments of other Cochrane poor reviews.

What a strange comment. "Truly objective outcomes don't exist. The key finding is DIFFERENCE between arms". Seems like a curve ball. Sentence 2 is in no way a corollary from sentence 1, completely unrelated in fact. And as for "that is how the illness is defined" ... well only because it is the...

Yes, it seems to show how the normal Cochrane process is to be bullied by authors, and having the "Cochrane" brand attached to your work is not so much about merit but about influence.

The paper may have been withdrawn by Cochrane rather than retracted, but when you read these emails it is clear the paper is effectively stuffed. Can't really see the authors hawking their review round other publishers with any success now, nor wanting to humiliate themselves further by trying...