David Tuller: Trial By Error: My Letter about MUS to the British Journal of General Practice

[Eagles]

Trial By Error: My Letter about MUS to the British Journal of General Practice

http://www.virology.ws/2019/05/06/t...s-to-the-british-journal-of-general-practice/

6 May 2019

By David Tuller, DrPH

Reuters reporter Kate Kelland informed me in January that my habit of routinely sending open letters to researchers and journals to expose what I consider to be bogus studies was “harassment,” according to those who perceive themselves as my victims. Whatever. I disagree that writing lots of letters about violations of core methodological and ethical principles and alerting key decision-makers to my concerns constitutes “harassment.”

To the contrary, I consider this method of watchdogging the published record and debunking nonsense to be a major function of my position as a public health academic and investigative journalist at Berkeley’s Center for Global Public Health. If members of the CBT/GET ideological brigades would prefer me to stop this practice, they should correct or retract papers that cannot withstand rigorous scrutiny. It is unattractive for them to cry “harassment” every time patients, me, or 114 experts from Columbia, Stanford, University College London, Harvard, Berkeley, Georgetown, Queen Mary University of London, Cornell, UCSF, and elsewhere point out disqualifying flaws in their research…

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

Be interesting to see the response...I wonder how many letters it will take?

 

[chrisb]

Be interesting to see the response...I wonder how many letters it will take?

That's the spirit. Keep up the optimism. There's a first time for everything.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

That's the spirit. Keep up the optimism. There's a first time for everything.

Must be because I got more than 5 hrs sleep

 

[Amw66]

Must be because I got more than 5 hrs sleep

In a row?

 

[rvallee]

Anyone who seriously claims that asking legitimate questions and raising criticism of controversial and garbage-quality research impacting millions is doing "harassment" deserves to have twice as many questions asked every time they repeat that claim. It's the criminal investigation equivalent of "you can search anywhere in the house, except the basement; under no circumstances are you allowed in the basement". Might as well put flashing arrow signs.

Most disappointing is the institutions that enable this anti-science mess. The supervisors of the psychosocial school of thought are incredibly irresponsible in their handling of their denial of reality. Serious adult supervision is required ASAP. This nonsense has been allowed to operate without restraint for far too long. There are millions of lives negatively impacted by this and it's covered as if it were a political horse race of no consequence. Way past time to shine some light in those backrooms.

 

[Kalliope]

New blog post:
Trial By Error: My Exchange with the British Journal of Medical Practice

As I have reported, I recently sent a letter to the editor of the British Journal of General Practice. To my surprise, when I woke up this morning I had an e-mail from him. Below is that e-mail, followed by my response.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

Well that was quick

 

[dave30th]

Well that was quick

yes and I'm curious to see what happens next.

 

[NelliePledge]

Typical defensive cricket shot bat the issue very gently back. Except @dave30th isn’t a cricket bowler so he picked it up and sent a fastball pitch back

ETA I confess I had to do a little research on baseball terms

 

[Trish]

So good to see David telling the editor in no uncertain terms it's his responsibility to ensure the article is corrected by Prof Chew Graham with full explanation.

 

[Binkie4]

Neatly described @NelliePledge

 

[Hoopoe]

Anyone who seriously claims that asking legitimate questions and raising criticism of controversial and garbage-quality research impacting millions is doing "harassment" deserves to have twice as many questions asked every time they repeat that claim. It's the criminal investigation equivalent of "you can search anywhere in the house, except the basement; under no circumstances are you allowed in the basement".

 

[large donner]

If I falsified my tax returns ten years ago would that be ok or would it just be boring old data?

 

[rvallee]

So good to see David telling the editor in no uncertain terms it's his responsibility to ensure the article is corrected by Prof Chew Graham with full explanation.

I'm getting really mixed signals about what exactly is it that medical research journal editors actually do if they are not bothered by glaring mistakes in research they publish, even when people repeatedly slap them in the face with it, the mistakes circled in bright red and accompanied by drawings of why mistakes are bad.

"Don't ask me about whether it's accurate or if that even matters, I just vet and publish this stuff" is a really weird position to take. That's essentially the position with all the psychosocial research, every mistake is basically met with a shrug of "well, the authors say it's fine so what do you want me to do?"

And in this case it is clearly used to inform policies and affects enormous budgets so that position of "it's old data" is very odd. Maybe then don't use "old data" that you consider unreliable? No?

 

[Sean]

Failure to correct demonstrable errors is a sacking offence for a journal editor, IMHO.

Their damn job is quality control.

 

[Barry]

So good to see David telling the editor in no uncertain terms it's his responsibility to ensure the article is corrected by Prof Chew Graham with full explanation.

The astonishing thing is that he needs telling. Seems to be part of the job spec for quite a few of these journal editors.

 

[ME/CFS Skeptic]

I thought the response of Dr Jones was a bit embarrassing. "the data are a decade old now"...

The data do not need correction it's the 2017 bjgp editorial that misrepresented those data that needs correction.

Why are all these responses from editors so disappointing...

 

[NelliePledge]

Why are all these responses from editors so disappointing...

They think they can fudge their way round any issues. They are avoiding the activity of correcting inaccuracies. They have unhelpful beliefs about the reputations of their journals. I prescribe Correcting Bullshit Therapy*

*TM

 

[Alvin]

If speaking truth to power is harassment then the only authority possible is authoritarian.
This is what some want