Cochrane ME/CFS GET review temporarily withdrawn

I am fairly sure this is the first one from the April. The individual data one was sent out to review in the July and has not been seen since.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1052663055530766337

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1052663308027740160

 

Good news, but awfully biased article. The activist side is not represented at all.

 

I wonder who raised the formal complaint with Tovey, as editor in chief, that he felt had to be listened to.

ETA: and what were the specific questions posed that the editors judged were so important?

See Reuters link.

ETA: “In an emailed response to questions from Reuters, Tovey said: “We are in discussion with the review author team about this review following a formal complaint to me as Cochrane’s editor in chief, which we judged to raise important questions.”

 

The article is still on the Cochrane site as of right now.

 

@Esther12 often discusses how it can be problematic to focus too much on the argument about whether it is "mental" or "physical". I'm not convinced that these issues should never be raised but this is a good example that they can backfire and distract from important issues.

 

I don't think anyone has posted a link to the review in this thread as yet, but seems worth having ...

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003200.pub7/full

 

I have heard on the grapevine a number of individuals put a lot of time and effort into reviewing the individual patient data Cochrane exercise for CFS review. I don't think that is the review that is being talked about in this article but I imagine the sort of comments raised made Tovey think, so thanks to them.

 

The review is not going to disappear permanently. The best we can hope for is a downgrade of the evidence, with note that unblinded study combined with subjective outcomes is an unreliable form of evidence.

 

Sorry but I think you're being naive. They people that were interviewed want to save face and avoid publicly acknowledging the more serious problems. They would always find some way to misrepresent the critic position even if no patient ever expressed that they felt offended by the suggestion that thoughts and behaviour maintain the illness.

Trying to control what they say about critics by being good, well mannered and reasonable doesn't work. The key people will probably never admit for the rest of their lives that CBT/GET is a bogus treatment.

 

Yes indeed, such as:

On treatments, evidence from at least 10 published studies — including the 2017 Cochrane Review — shows psychological approaches such as graded exercise and cognitive behavioral therapy can help some CFS/ME patients improve.

Yet critics say this amounts to a suggestion that the syndrome is a mental disorder, or “all in the mind”. They campaign fiercely to block or discredit any research looking at psychological or behavioral treatments, arguing that they are physically, not psychologically, debilitated. ​

Nothing to do with the egregious methodological problems, obviously.

 

Anyway, despite the irritatingly biased article and ludicrous comments from Blakemore, this is great news. Huge thanks to all who have worked on tackling this poor-quality review - including, of course, our Bob.

 

Exciting times.

Hopefully we see more good excitement and less bad excitement.

 

WOW!

Can’t quite believe I’m actually reading this news! Made my day.

 

So not the individual patient data review, which involves the PACE Trial investigators, among others.

The pooled data review first came out a number of years ago and then gets updated when comments are submitted.