Concerns about Cochrane

Sly Saint said:
https://blogs.plos.org/absolutely-m...-the-me-cfs-exercise-dispute-matters-so-much/
https://blogs.plos.org/absolutely-m...n-of-the-cochrane-review-on-exercise-and-cfs/
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yeah sorry. You're right. I spent a lot of time bugging her to look at it in late 2018/early 2019 and I also emailed her in 2016/7 ish?. I know I was not the only one over the years, but i was the most recent one - and I think almost certainly the one she found most annoying! And then she got invited to advise Cochrane on what to do about the review, and also to help them update their conflict of interest policy. She did declare that her PhD supervisor Paul Glaziou was an author on the withdrawn (individual patient data) protocol, but not that he is an acknowledged advisor on the published review, along with PACE PI Peter White. I am annoyed that she didn't use her considerable influence to get Cochrane to withdraw the review, and is giving them a pat on the back for publishing an an amendment which will not make any difference to patients. At least there is now a link from the review to the statement about the update - although no one will see it.
 
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Esther12 said:
He seems to ignore the fact that covid-19 is more infectuous than normal flu, as well as more deadly.
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Covid-19 is the illness, not the virus, which is SARS-CoV-2.

This current strain is analogous to certain historical epidemic flu strains, only we don't have a vaccine, hence the panic. Several betacoronaviruses have been circulating in human populations for years and alphacoronaviruses are common.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_HKU1

It is still hard to compare it to flu directly given that it has not circulating as widely as flu does (yet!?!), except in one city and China historically, did not report deaths in of people who had comorbidities as 'flu'. (look up why Chinese Flu death statistics are so low!)
 
Only had a cursory look at this and it doesn't give a good impression about the Cochrane board members' mediation skills.

Anyway, I had wondered before whether Gøtzsche got expelled from Cochrane because he a bit too enthusiastically praciticized their credo about having to fight against over-medicalization, the pharmaceutical industry and the like?

Edited to add: Apologies if off-topic and badly worded -- just think we need to be cautious about the idea that every criticism of Cochrane, of PACE, of the BPS approach to illness etc. is justified, and even more cautious about potential allies. (I think Gøtzsche isn't a critic of PACE or the BPS approach, these were only meant as examples for criticism voiced by other potential allies.)

(Edited again for clarity.)
 
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What are the terms for being nominated? It would seem fairly reasonable to put forward the effort of people pushing back against the churn of low-quality BPS research. It's a joint effort, but obviously you can't reduce research waste better than simply not ever funding research that we know is not only useless but had a massively negative impact. Something like a combination of David Tuller, Keith Geraghty, Brian Hugues and a few others who have raised concerns about obviously useless research, exposing the deep rot at the core of evidence-based medicine.

I would fully expect it not to win but something that will look bad in hindsight. It's impossible to do better at reducing research waste then ending an entire factory line of garbage-quality research that serves no purpose, can effectively be shown to have actually wasted trillions by blocking genuine research. Because more than anything it's the cheap formula that is at fault, so even by only counting direct research funding we are talking about billions in research that isn't just useless, it was 100% useless years before it was even conceived.

It probably wouldn't be accepted because the criteria are too arbitrary. It basically only counts standard research, precisely the kind that is at fault here.
 
Sly Saint said:
Apply now: the 2021 Cochrane-REWARD prize for reducing waste in research
hmm. stop funding these 'researchers' ??

https://www.cochrane.org/news/apply-now-2021-cochrane-reward-prize-reducing-waste-research
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An example that could be used is the NICE ME/CFS evidence review!

I think the criteria could be met...

All nominations will be assessed using the following criteria:

  1. The nominee has addressed at least one of the 5 stages of waste (questions, design, conduct, publication, reporting) in health research;
  2. The nominee has pilot or more definitive data showing the initiative can lower waste;
  3. The initiative can be scaled up;
  4. The estimated potential reduction in research waste that the initiative might achieve.
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