Concerns about Cochrane

And there are a couple of good quotes from doctors, it's an great article :)


As one of ugeskrift.dk's bloggers, "Dr. Jan Lindebjerg, Pediatric Department, Hospital Lillebælt Vejle, has stated:
"We are beginning to be more aware that Cochrane reviewers may be sensitive to intellectual bias, why you are now looking more critical of what's coming out. You do not accept everything just because Cochrane is on. It has been more prone to before."
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Professor Elias Eriksson, Department of Pharmacology at Sahlgrenska Academy's Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology in Gothenburg:
Nor does he consider - anymore - Cochranes credibility as an indisputable fact.
"Cochrane played an important role when the institute was founded because the meta-analyzes and systematic summaries that were published were often of high quality. But now I think the time is ripe for reports from Cochrane alone to be judged on their own merits and are not expected to be better or worse than meta-analyzes and systematic reviews from other researchers who may not be using Cochrane's manuals and guidelines, "says he.
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Esther12 said:
I've been surprised by how much medical researchers seem keen to give Cochrane the benefit of the doubt in the face of their vague attacks on Gøtzsche. I think that there's a strong desire from people outside of Cochrane to keep the Cochrane brand respected. The trustworthiness of Cochrane reviews might be viewed as a useful myth.
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Exactly. Peter was terminated for two reasons:
He was openly criticising and thus hurting the perception of the brand.
He was openly criticising the organisational structure of Cochrane itself.

Cochrane is becoming a rubber-stamping exercise for the medical establishment, nothing more.

There are plenty of studies showing problems in Cochrane reviews, but things don't seem to be improving.

The issues that plague systematic meta analyses also plague Cochrane reviews:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25271098

And the overall problem of publication bias is not effectively addressed:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29981870
 
dave30th said:
Is aspirin used in the plural in UK or is that a typo? In American English you don't say "aspirins."
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I realise we have to treat you Americans with sympathy, since things are going a bit awry in the Senate these days, but the English take aspirins, usually three to make 900mg. We don't take some penicillins or even paracetamols (which I think you refer to as acetaminophen) but these are a bit modern - like the USA.
 
Not sure the English should be casting aspersions at Americans on the grounds of what their politicians get up to. Pot, kettle and all that. But we're not allowed to discuss politics here, so I'll leave that aside.

I wonder whether it's a hangover of my Aussie upbringing, but I would take 3 aspirin, not 3 aspirins, despite 40 years in England. But then I never take any aspirin or aspirins, so what do I know!
 
Sasha said:
I don't - I take three aspirin (English born and bred).
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Perhaps you are a bit modern too, Sasha.

I think we called them aspirins because they came in a jar of 500 with cotton wool at the top. It may be that my father had filched them from the pharmacy at work but I think even Boots supplied bottles like that (brown ones) until they started worrying about people taking too many.
 
dave30th said:
we are in serious mourning and distress after yesterday's spectacularly riveting and depressing mini-series, except for some ME patients on my Facebook page who are defending Kavanagh.
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Today's episode looked pretty messy too. It seems to have a John Le Carré feel in the sense that the good guys never quite get a chance even when you think they might. But there's two more episodes to go I gather...
 
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