Independent advisory group for the full update of the Cochrane review on exercise therapy and ME/CFS (2020), led by Hilda Bastian

The late Colin Blakemore was an important neurobiologist who achieved international prominence, a great hero of science when I was a undergraduate, but also he very publicly defended animal research and became notoriously a target of animal rights campaigners in the 1980s and 1990s. I assume this is what Clare Gerada is alluding to, continuing the slander of describing ME campaigners as equal to the extremist end of the animal rights movement that promoted direct action.

Sorry I haven’t picked up on the 2018 allusion.

[added - Colin Blakemore’s own work was not for the faint hearted. Although I did not have direct experience of his lab in Oxford I knew people who did and also spent time in labs of his colleagues. This left me very clear that this was not an area of research I wanted to be involved with, despite the enormous strides forward it brought to our understanding of the human brain.]

 

This may have been when the then Cochrane editor in chief Tovey intimated that he would withdraw the previous CFS exercise review on the grounds of valid scientific criticism albeit from patients, before he bowed to pressure allowing Lauren et al to mark their own homework which lead to the publishing of the current exercise review under his successor in 2019.

Initially Tovey at first had seriously addressed the issues raised by patients about the scientific flaws in the research the review relied on, flaws that the NICE guidelines process also identified. However Cochrane has since failed to address any of these issues, as seen by the prevarication and non responses to our communication with them.

 

It makes a lot of sense when you consider that in their worldview, bad science is science they disagree with, whereas pseudoscience they agree with can be good science.

Which is more often than not the case, given that most of medicine still works and is scientific. It's just that there is no plan B to account for when experts themselves fall for pseudoscience and close rank with groupthink.

 

IIRC, this is right after the withdrawal was announced, and in the short interval before it was undone.

 

Didn't add the link to the Reuters piece (see screenshot) quoting Blakemore as it doesn't work anymore. (Now edited)

S4ME thread thread on article and quotes here.


Blakemore quotes from that thread:


"Colin Blakemore, a professor of neuroscience and philosophy at London University’s School of Advanced Studies, said the withdrawal decision set a worrying precedent for scientific evidence being over-ridden by the opinions of activists.

"The withdrawal would also be 'a departure from the principle that has always guided Cochrane reviews — that they should be based on scientific and clinical evidence ... but not influenced by unsubstantiated views or commercial pressures.' "

Posted here:

I think if you google Blakemore & 'Science Media Centre' some links will show up, also to 'Sense about Science'.


It hurts in so many ways to read that old thread --

 

According to the Reuters piece Gerade referred to in her Tweet I think Cochrane hadn't announced anything but the review authors themselves reached out to Reuters / journalist Kate Kelland

 

Oh right I think they had insider info early.

 

Feel free to move if this is wrong thread.

From Todd Davenport on Bluesky:
The author team received word today that Cochrane will not accept the protocol we submitted to update the 2017 review on exercise therapy for ME/CFS. To say the very least—a disappointing development for people living with ME/CFS and the state of the science.

https://bsky.app/profile/sunsopeningband.bsky.social/post/3ldg2gcofh22d

This post has been copied and discussion moved to:
Petition: S4ME 2023 - Cochrane: Withdraw the harmful 2019 Exercise therapy for CFS review