Cochrane Review: 'Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome' 2017, Larun et al. - Recent developments, 2018-19

three months now

 

Ah yes, Halloween, such a great date to publish things, or leave things. What a shame it doesn't coincide with a full moon as well!

 

Ah, that will be it. They've prorogued their review process.

 

Not a good start, Karla.

 

There seem to be two documents published on eInnsyn which we haven't seen yet (documents from 24.06.2019, published 08.08.2019)

edited to add: Google translate of the title: "Complaint - Denial of access to document 12 and 13 in case 17/10566"

So doesn't seem to be correspondence between Cochrane and the reviewers' team.

Documents 12 & 13 were already published and posted on this thread.

https://einnsyn.no/saksmappe?id=http://data.einnsyn.no/noark4/Saksmappe--983744516--11291--2019

@Kalliope

 

Thanks for keeping an eye on that. Please let us know if you get anything new.

 

Thanks. I've sent a FOI-request for the documents. Doubt they will contain anything of interest, but just to be sure.

 

I don't understand, are they retrospectively trying to block access to those two documents?

 

Thank you, @Kalliope

I have no idea. Maybe someone requested access to the e-mails attachments and that's what was denied. (I didn't check which e-mails had attachments though).

But I'm sure @Kalliope will have an answer soon.

Another question @Kalliope: Do you know whether it's also possible to request an update on the reporting of any additional documents on the case? (The intervals between the dates when the e-mails were sent and the dates when they were reported to eInnsyn seem rather arbitrary to me.)

 

The issue is that the (former) editor was demanding changes or a voluntary retraction by the authors (to avoid loss of face for both the journal and the authors), yet the authors were unwilling to do either, presumably because they knew the editor was retiring and they may get a different decision by the new editor. Presumably the new editor has persisted with the former editor's demands, leading to a stalemate. The only resolution that I see is to demand the changes or the journal will retract the article.

 

I really don't get how these people think.

They were told to alter it or it would be retracted.

They didn't.

So there is no reason not to retract it, and every reason to do so.

It's really really simple and I am surprised that neither the authors or cochrane gets it.

Not retracting it makes cochrane look weak, bad and liars. As if they were bluffing, for some unknown reason.

Not retracting it when clear conditions were set, and these haven't been met, is dishonest.

With the authors, as with any immature being, once a pronouncement is made it must be followed through on, if all respect, and hence control, isn't to be lost.

 

They're afraid of the big loss of face, namely they'd have to admit they had an article up for years that didn't meet their quality standards. They also no doubt have certain UK and Dutch psychiatrists in their ears about how terrible it would be to give ammunition to the skeptical patient community (those of us who actually demand the same quality of evidence as would be required for a pharmacological treatment).

 

To me, those copies of correspondence indicated that Tovey wasn't asking for much of a change, and I didn't see it as indicating Cochrane had really understood all the problems with the research used to promoted exercise therapy for CFS. I would still expect any updated review from Larun to be bad so am not too concerned by any delay.

 

Good question. I have no idea, though..

 

No news is good news?

 

I am not sure it matters any more. All the people to whom the review is relevant are now well aware that a lot of people think it is incompetent. They may or may not agree but that is another issue.

What matters in the UK is NICE and I suspect other countries that might be looking over their shoulder are more likely to follow NICE than Cochrane. I think NICE will make its own mind up, whatever happens to this review.

 

Nope. The average medical practitioner (for example, the GP I saw who looked up CFS on Wikipedia) does not look very deep at the evidence and still expects the Cochrane brand to do the thinking for them.