Cochrane Review: 'Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome', Larun et al. - New version October 2019 and new date December 2024

[Kitty]

So some people seem to be keen to sell the review as 'new' on Xitter

When in reality, it's possible all that happened is the computer system automatically changed the date when they added the note.

 

[MSEsperanza]

Struggling with following the news on this -- just saw that obvious error on the '2024' review's abstract on Pubmed abstract where they added:

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01512342.

Which is this trial:

Pacing Activity Self-management for Patients With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Information provided by Jo Nijs, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Responsible Party)

Last Update Posted 2015-12-17


Thought that would be good opportunity to alert Pubmed not only about that error but also about the re-publishing trick?

Apologies, not able to do that myself

 

[Caroline Struthers]

Does anyone have acces to the 2024 version? Has anyone checked if it is the same as the 2019 one but with the editorial note added to it?

Nothing has changed from the 2019 version. It's a con trick. They are shameless

 

[ME/CFS Skeptic]

Nothing has changed from the 2019 version. It's a con trick. They are shameless

Does it include the editorial notes?

 

[Trish]

Nothing has changed from the 2019 version. It's a con trick. They are shameless

Is this research misconduct that should be reported to COPE?

 

[Nightsong]

Haven't been following this thread closely but I think what is being asked is what the differences are on the first page of the 2019 vs 2024 reviews? Automatic comparison of that page with Adobe's PDF comparison tool:

 

[forestglip]

So some people seem to be keen to sell the review as 'new' on Xitter

https://cochrane.altmetric.com/details/172238673/twitter

From that list, it looks like basically one account posted and around 20 others retweeted it from them. The original account is Physio Meets Science @PhysioMeScience

https://www.physiomeetsscience.net/

Might be worth telling them and anyone else who posts it what the deal is to see if they'll delete. Very likely they don't know it's not a new review.

Looks like at least one person has replied to their tweet to tell them.

I don't have a Twitter account anymore, but I used the contact form on their website.

 

[Hutan]

We have amended the title of this thread, and added a link in the first post of the thread to the beginning of the discussion about the 2024 relabelling

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Physio Meets Science seems to be a German commercial outfit providing physio 'educational' materials.

 

[Hutan]

Physio meets science but can't understand what it says

 

[Hutan]

Just noting this from the 2019 (and of course the 2024) version

Included studies
Eight studies (Fulcher 1997; Jason 2007; Moss-Morris 2005; Powell2001; Wallman 2004; Wearden 1998; Wearden 2010; White 2011), met our inclusion criteria for this review in a total of 23 reports. All reports of the included studies were written in English andpublished in peer-reviewed journals. The eight studies randomly assigned a total of 1518 participants with sample sizes ranging between 49 (Moss-Morris 2005), and 641 participants (White 2011).

So, most recent included study was in 2011.

 

[Binkie4]

Just noting this from the 2019 (and of course the 2024) version


So, most recent included study was in 2011.

And now dated 2024. This is just mad. Do they expect to get away with it? Of course because they have got away with everything else, apart from the Nice guidelines. But now they have a publication dated after 2021.

 

[Trish]

Note that the 2019 version now has an added notice at the top saying:
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003200.pub8/full

Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome

• Lillebeth Larun
• Kjetil G Brurberg
• Jan Odgaard-Jensen
• Jonathan R Price

Authors' declarations of interest
Version published: 02 October 2019 Version history

https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD003200.pub8
This is not the most recent version

view the current version19 December 2024

 

[Sean]

I would go further and suggest that many of the criticisms apply more widely to literature on all sorts of behavioural interventions for all sorts of medical conditions.

I think this is the real reason they canned the ME/CFS review. If they let that one get corrected properly it will have profound consequences for all psycho-behavioural reviews, as the whole field is corrupted by the same basic shitty pseudo-methodology.

A careful consideration by Cochrane of the risk of bias in unblinded trials of interventions with only subjective outcomes, especially interventions aiming to change the way the patient interprets symptoms,...

It is not even that much. They can only measure changes in the way that patients report their symptoms.

So, most recent included study was in 2011.

And that 2011 study (PACE) was supposed to be the definitive test of those previous non-definitive studies. Indeed it was the rationale for PACE.

They are clearly going to defend PACE unto death.

 

[bobbler]

Wow
e.g.


Caroline Struthers has replied

thanks for doing that @Caroline Struthers

 

[bobbler]

From that list, it looks like basically one account posted and around 20 others retweeted it from them. The original account is Physio Meets Science @PhysioMeScience

https://www.physiomeetsscience.net/

Might be worth telling them and anyone else who posts it what the deal is to see if they'll delete. Very likely they don't know it's not a new review.

Looks like at least one person has replied to their tweet to tell them.

I don't have a Twitter account anymore, but I used the contact form on their website.

I've just looked up the website and the about us section (under membership) and under 'who we are' there are quite a lot of physios, sports scientists and some dieticians. I don't know whether any of the 20 retweeters match up with these?

 

[bobbler]

Just noting this from the 2019 (and of course the 2024) version


So, most recent included study was in 2011.

"making PACE look modern"... by it being the most recent publication in there?

There is stuff from the 1990s? all I can think of is grunge and some of the strange haircuts now..

 

[bobbler]

Note that the 2019 version now has an added notice at the top saying:
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003200.pub8/full

Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome

• Lillebeth Larun
• Kjetil G Brurberg
• Jan Odgaard-Jensen
• Jonathan R Price

Authors' declarations of interest
Version published: 02 October 2019 Version history

https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD003200.pub8
This is not the most recent version

view the current version19 December 2024

 

[ME/CFS Skeptic]

Automatic comparison of that page with Adobe's PDF comparison tool:

Thanks, this suggests that @Medfeb is right and that they combined the amendment and editorial note in the previous update. So the new publication for the editorial note might be standard practice and not intentional but I think it is still quite misleading.

 

[MSEsperanza]

Thanks, this suggests that @Medfeb is right and that they combined the amendment and editorial note in the previous update.

Not sure -- I remember vaguely that adding an editorial note/ a link to the EiC's announcement was an idea proposed by forum people? I think the version history is right that it was not added before February 2020.

Also if you look at the version history between the updates there were a few other occasions when notes were added but that didn't result in a citation update (i.e. new year of publication).

Can't find any update only related to an added note.

I think it's more likely they added the editorial note to the 2019 version after February 2020 -- not sure how that could be proved other than if anyone had downloaded the original PDF version before the amendment.

Can't find the discussion on adding a link to the EiC's statement now -- but here's another editorial note that didn't result in a new date publication attached to that amendment:

Amendment of the current version of the review:

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003200.pub8/information#whatsNew

Amended 12 March 2020:


Note added from the editorial team at Cochrane Editorial and Methods Department on 12 March 2019[*], 'A webpage providing information and regular updates on the progress of the planned update of this Cochrane Review is available here: community.cochrane.org/organizational‐info/people/central‐executive‐team/editorial‐methods/projects/stakeholder‐engagement‐high‐profile‐reviews‐pilot'.

[*] typo (2019 instead of 2020) in the original]