Blog: "The PACE PLOS One data will not be released and the article won’t be retracted", James Coyne

Andy

Andy

Senior Member (Voting rights)
Two years have passed since I requested release of the PLOS One PACE data, eight months since the Expression of Concern was posted. What can we expect?

If we spot some usually unrecognized connections, we can see the PLOS One editors are biased towards the PACE investigators, favoring them over other stakeholders in whether the data are released as promised..

Spoiler: The PLOS One Senior Editors completed the pre-specified process of deciding what to do about the data not being shared. They took no action. Months later the Senior Editors reopened the process and invited one of PACE investigators Trudy Chalder’s outspoken co-authors to help them reconsider.

A lot of us weren’t cynical enough to notice.

International trends will continue toward making uploading data into publicly accessible repositories a requirement for publication. PLOS One has slowed down by buying into discredited arguments about patient consent forms not allowing sharing of anonymized data.

PLOS One is no longer at the vanguard of open science through routine data sharing.
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https://www.coyneoftherealm.com/blo...e-released-and-the-article-won-t-be-retracted
 
In case anybody wants to figure out if PLOS One are breaking their own rules - http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability

The most pertinent section would be this I guess
Exceptions
What are the acceptable exceptions to making the data publicly available?

We hope that data will be publicly available to all interested researchers, but we do understand that ethical and legal restrictions may prohibit this. The policy is not intended to overrule local regulations, legislation or ethical frameworks. Where these frameworks prevent or limit data release, authors should make these limitations clear in the Data Availability Statement at the time of submission.

Possible exceptions to making data publicly available include:

  • Data cannot be made publicly available for ethical or legal reasons, e.g., public availability would compromise patient confidentiality or participant privacy.

  • Data deposition could present some other threat, such as revealing the locations of fossil deposits, endangered species, or farms/other animal enclosures etc.
We hope that institutions will recognize the importance of preserving data and making it available, especially given concerns over data preservation and reproducibility, and that they will support their researchers in making data available. We encourage researchers and their institutions to consider whether a Data Access Committee could be convened to hold data and respond to requests for data. Since many institutions do not have committees in place to help with this process, we will work with authors to try to identify a solution in the meantime.

Please contact the journal office (plosone@plos.org) to discuss:

  • if you feel unable to share data for reasons not specified above, or

  • if you have concerns about the ethics or legality of sharing your data.
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Data deposition could present some other threat, such as revealing the locations of fossil deposits, endangered species
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Technically the PACE authors could be classified as endangered species, they are a rare breed afterall.

The data might spell an end to their era of lies, deception and pseudoscience.
 
Andy said:
In case anybody wants to figure out if PLOS One are breaking their own rules - http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability

The most pertinent section would be this I guess
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What I understand (not understand but gathered from the claims) is that the PACE trial paper was submitted before the DATA rules were implemented for our misfortune. So they are not required per this outline.
 
Sean said:
Hypocrites and cowards.
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Yes, but mostly just profiteers. The researchers are the journal's paying customers. Making money is more important to PLOS One than their stated values. Upholding their values might mean that fewer people will publish if they know they'll have to share their data as promised, whereas ignoring that requirement will make their journal more attractive to a larger number of people. Of course, they'll flush away their reputation, but that doesn't really matter as long as they're making a profit.

Seven said:
What I understand (not understand but gathered from the claims) is that the PACE trial paper was submitted before the DATA rules were implemented for our misfortune. So they are not required per this outline.
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The initial PACE trial wasn't covered by MRC rules, from what I recall, due to the timing, but some data had to be released anyhow due to FOIA requirements. But Coyne's blog post is about a later analysis published under PLOS One's requirements to share data, which PLOS One is now ignoring.
 
BurnA said:
Technically the PACE authors could be classified as endangered species, they are a rare breed afterall.
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:laugh:

Hopefully soon QMUL can be classified as
location of fossil deposits
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(this is not a death tread but a metaphor :)).
brachiosaurus_bild_4.jpg
 
Valentijn said:
But Coyne's blog post is about a later analysis published under PLOS One's requirements to share data, which PLOS One is now ignoring.
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I think @Seven was saying that the PLOS rules have changed since the PACE paper was submitted. They still should have shared the underlying data under the old rules, but they were slightly different rules to the current ones (I've forgotten exactly how they've changed).
 
Esther12 said:
I think @Seven was saying that the PLOS rules have changed since the PACE paper was submitted. They still should have shared the underlying data under the old rules, but they were slightly different rules to the current ones (I've forgotten exactly how they've changed).
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They might have to share prior to publishing now, whereas before they merely had to promise to share in the event that anyone asked.
 
Am very unwell, can someone TL;DR please? I don't understand how the data will not be released if it is a condition of publication.
 
I wonder what would happen now if someone tried to jump through all their hoops? Aren't they telling someone else (@JohnTheJack ?) that now White has retired they'd need to hire someone new to access the data or something?

I wonder if there's a researcher/PhD student at an academic institution who might be willing to do that? There were limitations of that analysis done with the FOI data (seemingly of no practical importance), and requesting the full PACE data set in order to dot every i could be a worthwhile side project for someone.
 
Valentijn said:
They're supporting the violation of their own policy, basically.
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The data policy was implemented on March 3, 2014. Any paper submitted before that date will not have a data availability statement. However for all manuscripts submitted or published before this date, data must be available upon reasonable request.[3]
http://me-pedia.org/wiki/PLOS_ONE

Maybe we need to ask PLOS one "data must be available upon reasonable request" what is the appropriate way to request this data. Pressure by formal channels.
 
Probably the best way to get the data is to convince a group of senior researchers from outside the PACE-BPS school, with rock solid research and ethics credentials, from different reputable institutions, and different countries, to make a collective application for it. (All of it, not selected bits. Everything used by the PACE authors in their original PLoS paper.)

Like to see PLoS deny that. It would be a huge scandal.
 
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Esther12 said:
I wonder what would happen now if someone tried to jump through all their hoops? Aren't they telling someone else (@JohnTheJack ?) that now White has retired they'd need to hire someone new to access the data or something?

I wonder if there's a researcher/PhD student at an academic institution who might be willing to do that? There were limitations of that analysis done with the FOI data (seemingly of no practical importance), and requesting the full PACE data set in order to dot every i could be a worthwhile side project for someone.
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The ICO are still considering the matter. I'll let everyone know once a decision is made.
 
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