Cochrane Exercise Review Withdrawn - Individual Patient Data

Working link is https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD011040.pub2/full

Reason for withdrawal from publication
This protocol has been withdrawn and it is no longer being progressed to a Cochrane review.
This protocol was published in 2014 and a new protocol is required for any future individual participant data (IPD) meta‐analysis on this topic.

The editorial group responsible for this previously published document have withdrawn it from publication.
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Could someone explain how the individual patient data review is different from the more generalized one?

Just a stab in the dark: is this about patient A, then B, then C etc., rather than larger groups?

I've heard about this review, but don't know what it's about, except GET for ME.

Thanks in advance for the explanation!
 
The idea is that if you go back to individual patient raw data for the studies that are included in a meta-analysis you can in theory make a more rigorous analysis by ensuring that you compare like with like rather than just working with the published findings.

The problem with the way this was done was that in exchange for obtaining the data the relevant study authors were offered authorship of the meta-analysis, which makes a mockery of independent reviewing.

These individual patient data are of course the data that the PACE authors have refused to make available to anyone else other than Cochrane workers who offered them co-authorship. So we have the very worst scenario of gerrymandering of interpretation.

In practice the review says nothing very different from the one already published in 2017.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
The problem with the way this was done was that in exchange for obtaining the data the relevant study authors were offered authorship of the meta-analysis, which makes a mockery of independent reviewing.

These individual patient data are of course the data that the PACE authors have refused to make available to anyone else other than Cochrane workers who offered them co-authorship. So we have the very worst scenario of gerrymandering of interpretation.
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Wait, what?

Why would anyone at Cochrane ever agree to this?
 
As far as I can see the only thing that ever got published from this was the protocol for doing the review. So it seems the paper itself has been withdrawn without ever being published and now the protocol is being withdrawn too, making it clear the paper will never be published.
I must say I was shocked that the list of authors included the PACE and FINE trial investigators. I agree that is ludicrous.
 
The Cochrane Exercise Review that the authors recently resubmitted, with the resubmission being rejected is still online, see https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003200.pub7/full?highlightAbstract=withdrawn|cfs|exercise|exercis

However interestingly the word 'withdrawn' is now in its web address. Though a casual reader would still not notice that there are any acknowledged problems with the status of this article.

Since the updates on the 30th of November Mark Vink has added a comment (see https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cds....pub7/detailed-comment/en?messageId=160462657 ) that links to his excellent reanalysis of the issue of harm resulting from GET (see
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2055102918805187 ), dated the 2nd of December, and Cochrane's Managing Edition of their Common Mental Disorders Review Group has added the following reply:

Many thanks for your feedback on this review. Cochrane recognises the importance of the review and is committed to providing a high quality review that reflects the best current evidence to inform decisions. The Editor in Chief is currently holding discussions with colleagues and the author team to determine a series of steps that will lead to a full update of the review. Your feedback will be considered as part of this process so it can inform future versions of the review. These discussions will be concluded as soon as possible.
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This still leaves unanswered the question why, given it is now acknowledged there are problems with the current published version, that it remains online with the information that it requires a complete rewrite hidden in replies to comments or in a Note at the bottom of the Information page?

[edited to correct typos, also to be fair to Cochrane that they are considering how to update this review is also under 'What's new' further up the main page for the review than my post suggested, though I would argue still easily missed by a casual reader.]
 
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Peter Trewhitt said:
The Cochrane Exercise Review that the authors recently resubmitted, with the resubmission being rejected is still online, see https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003200.pub7/full?highlightAbstract=withdrawn|cfs|exercise|exercis

However interestingly the word 'withdrawn' is now in its web address. Though a casual reader would still not notice that there are any acknowledged problems with the status of this article.

Since the updates on the 30th of November Mark Vink has added a comment (see https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cds....pub7/detailed-comment/en?messageId=160462657 ) that links to his excellent reanalysis of the issue of harm resulting from GET (see
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2055102918805187 ), dated the 2nd of December, and Cochrane's Managing Edition of their Common Mental Disorders Review Group has added the following reply:

This still leaves unanswered the question why, given it is now acknowledged there are problems with the current published version, that it remains online with the information that it requires a complete rewrite hidden in replies to comments or in a Note at the bottom of the Information page?

[edited to correct typos, also to be fair to Cochrane that they are considering how to update this review is also under 'What's new' further up the main page for the review then my post suggested, though I would argue still easily missed by a casual reader.]
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So @Peter Trewhitt we are not fully out of the woods yet? Any idea when this might be finally sorted and the resubmission removed altogether. That's our ultimate goal, is that correct?
 
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Sunshine3 said:
Any idea when this might be finally sorted and the resubmission removed altogether. That's our ultimate goal, is that correct?
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I agree it certainly seems profoundly unsatisfactory that Cochrane have acknowledged there are significant issues with this review such that a complete rewrite is necessary, but leave it still online in a format such that the casual reader can easily access the full article without being aware that there is any question mark over its current status.

As Cochrane are taking ongoing action on this and on whether it is appropriate for ME/CFS to remain within the Common Mental Disorders Review Group (with a promised decision on this by the end of this year) the question now is which would be more productive: just waiting till Cochrane's internal discussions have run their course or trying to put pressure on them to take it off line now? Does anyone one with more experience have a clear feeling about this?

It is a major achievement to have got this far and it may be that further patient activism at present is unnecessary, that Larun and her colleagues' failure to answer criticisms adequately and their resorting to the usual BPS tactic of attack by leaking information to the Reuter's journalist with 'those horrid antiScience patients are bullying us' narrative hopefully doing as much as we could to alert Cochrane to the irrational biases of the advocates of this approach.

So I feel it is important we are seen to be the rational ones. Would a letter (or letters) to Cochrane commending their action so far and asking when they plan to remove the current version of the Exercise Review from their site, given the acknowledged problems with it be productive or not?

Also there is the issue that the CBT Review (see https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cds...027.pub2/full?highlightAbstract=withdrawn|cfs ) remains unquestioned, however would it be better to wait till we know which Review Group is that be responsible for hosting ME/CFS, given it could be a non psychiatric/psychological team might be more willing to address the problems in the experimental design?
 
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