We have written a blog article
that's an excellent blog.
We have written a blog article
https://twitter.com/user/status/1864344972675203469
We have written a blog article that summarizes the problems with the BMJ review on Long Covid interventions (Zeraatkar et al. 2024). Inconsistency in how imprecision was evaluated seems to be the key issue. Suspect that a correction will be needed.
https://mecfsskeptic.com/the-bmj-review-on-long-covid-interventions/
Thinking about this again after reading @ME/CFS Skeptic’s blog it occurs to me that what has happened is even more absurd. First, two badly designed studies (ReCover and REGAIN) have been published which provide no reliable evidence of efficacy of the interventions. Then the BMJ authors have done a “meta analysis” using those single studies for each outcome, which inflates the estimate of the effects sizes, resulting in recommendations that are not supported by the original datasets. Then the conclusions of the so-called meta analysis are spun to the media which inflates the already inflated results of the meta analysis, leading to headlines which suggests that CBT and rehab are not only effective treatments but probable cures.I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a letter from them protesting that psychological illnesses like LC and ME/CFS are real. PR manipulation at its best/worst.
SW and co will no doubt be raising a cheer – a truly dreadful piece of research, which doesn’t provide any reliable evidence in support of its claims about CBT and rehab, has passed peer-review and been published in the BMJ. Now the Telegraph is using it to write headlines which are not even supported by the false claims in the BMJ paper.
“War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”
How does it work in reality with these? can they sit it out waiting for ones they like to come through and then if not enough of those then they twiddle their thumbs about whether to let a critique through to make up the five or wait fur s friendly to pen something ?Still waiting on the peer review details, https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-081318/peer-review. They say, "Please note that it may take up to 5 days for the peer review documents to appear.". I won't be surprised if they aren't made available.
Still waiting on the peer review details
Who knows? I certainly don't.How does it work in reality with these? can they sit it out waiting for ones they like to come through and then if not enough of those then they twiddle their thumbs about whether to let a critique through to make up the five or wait fur s friendly to pen something ?
It seems to highlight similar problems as ours:There's also another new, critical response from someone who seems to work in clinical evidence synthesis amd medical statistics: https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-081318/rr-4
Hoping that the editors take notice.In reality, this conclusion is based not on a meta-analysis of 3695 patients but on the results of a single small trial with a sample size of 114, [1] which the review authors themselves judged to be at high risk of bias in more than one domain, according to the information presented in the Supplementary Data file. The review authors have chosen to interpret these findings as of 'Moderate' certainty, downgrading just one level for risk of bias and ignoring the uncertainty in the estimate, the confidence interval width in relation to the minimum clinically important difference, and the possibility in heterogeneity of effects between studies, should future studies in addition to this single trial be published. This assessment appears to run contrary to the BMJ's own Best Practice guidelines for GRADE. [2]
It seems to highlight similar problems as ours:
Hoping that the editors take notice.
I think they will. At least, the authors will have to respond. Doesn't mean they'll agree, unfortunately.
I do not know how formal the rapid response system is. Is it expected that the authors respond?
Still waiting on the peer review details, https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-081318/peer-review. They say, "Please note that it may take up to 5 days for the peer review documents to appear.". I won't be surprised if they aren't made available.