Anomalies in the review process and interpretation of the evidence in the NICE guideline for (CFS & ME), 2023, White et al

Have we seen a rebuttal from NICE to this yet?

 

My letter to The Lancet took about a year to get through the peer-review process. Some of these journals seem to be stuck in the dark ages.

 

NICE has not published the response they said they would write to counter the accusations of misconduct here. It's been several months. Is it possible to get answers from them? Did they give up on it? Got convinced by chums, similar to the attempts to get them to corrupt the guidelines process?

It has been several months now since multiple rapid responses were submitted, and only two have been published. The rest have been censored without the journal providing any reason for it.

 

I assume this is the case. but they should publish their response as a pre-print to get it out there.

 

apparently they submitted their response on Oct 1st, submitted a revision in November, and it is awaiting a final editorial response: https://twitter.com/user/status/1733364225651958020

 

As above -
https://twitter.com/user/status/1742257142680449508

 

Trial By Error: Update on NICE Response to “Anomalies” Paper; Higher ME/CFS Population Estimates in CDC Survey

"While it was known that NICE had submitted a response, details have generally been lacking. I recently learned that NICE submitted a response on October 1st, which was peer-reviewed; NICE submitted a revision on November 9th. After a second round of peer review, NICE’s response was sent to the “editorial committee” on December 7th for a final decision. That decision is still being awaited—or at least no decision is noted on the manuscript timeline in the JNNP editorial portal."

https://virology.ws/2024/01/03/tria...er-me-cfs-population-estimates-in-cdc-survey/

 

I’m not suggesting that it would necessarily be appropriate or helpful but I’m wondering if the correspondence between NICE and JNNP would be covered by the FOI act. As far as I understand peer-review is normally confidential so it might be an interesting case. I guess there have been some communications outside of the formal peer review process, as with the “there is a way” texts to Gillian Leng.

I also wonder if NICE might choose to publish its unedited version, as MEAction UK did. As @dave30th suggests in his blog, they could publish it a pre-print.

 

I was wondering if NICE could publish their correspondence - I assume they can. However, lets see whether JNNP finally publish NICE's response!

 

I have it on good authority that NICE's rebuttal paper has now been accepted for publication - no ETA on when it will be published though.

 

I’ve said this before but I hope it’s as good as it needs to be. My hopes are unusually high, which is probably unwise given the history of ME/CFS.

It will be very interesting to see what media coverage it gets, given the prominence that was given to the article it is responding to.

I also wonder how much the NICE press office will push it.

 

My hopes for this are very low, especially given the six month delay.

 

I see that more as an attempt to let the discussion fade into obscurity, then publish the rebuttal in the hopes no one reads it. Which they might still achieve. I expect NICE to come in strong though, hope it gets a wide audience.

 

NICE’s response has been published but annoyingly, unlike the original article, it’s behind a paywall: https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/2024/02/28/jnnp-2023-332731

 

I have uploaded the pdf to Googledocs
Not sure of the legality of sharing this on Twitter....

 

Thread here, NICE guideline on ME/CFS: robust advice based on a thorough review of the evidence, 2024, Barry et al.