Lancet Infectious Diseases: Editorial, "A proper place for retraction", 2017, mentions PACE in passing

My bolding.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(17)30458-9/fulltext

Proof, if we needed it, that they still don't understand the criticisms of PACE.

Highlighted in @Lucibee 's blog here - https://lucibee.wordpress.com/2017/08/27/a-case-for-retraction/#more-745

 

At a complete guess, I would say that they are assuming that different studies use different methodology. I mean, the various studies have different names, so they must have different methodologies, right??

 

I don't really follow their meaning. If the conclusions are dodgy, something in the study process must have been dodgy....
Or are they saying "conclusions are the issue" meaning patients (and researchers and informed clinicians) just don't like what they found out...

Apologies I should really have read the article before rambling.

 

This.

 

Lucy's letter in response was published in the Lancet in October 2017:

A case for retraction?
Lucy Bailey

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(17)30527-3/fulltext

 

I was asked to submit my letter in order to "continue the debate". But so far, I can see no evidence of that debate continuing at all. It seems to have been stifled!
This is why I am not a fan of journal Correspondence. It very rarely furthers debate, and in this day and age, it is way too slow.

 

Of course the conclusion is part of the issue

You should never be able to conclude that a given treatment is effective when a study is as methodologically flawed as PACE.

The Lancets nonchalant attitude towards flawed methodology is incredibly concerning.

 

So defending PACE indirectly. Nice strategy

 

Should not the Nice be capitalised?

 

Yes, it seems to be such an easily stifled form of correspondence, that it's not really correspondence at all.

 

Yes, the conclusion is part of the problem, because the whole thing is built on sand ... bad methodology the lot.

 

Indeed, but perhaps it should actually be all lower case

 

How very dare you!

 

Indeed, my next evil plan is to discredit alternative facts

 

Am I right in thinking @Lucibee that when you say ...

... you mean long the lines of:

1. That correspondence corrections are far too weak, and delay-prone.
2. That full retraction effectively removes all evidence from the formal record of a trial that was deeply flawed, a bit like sweeping history under the carpet? Akin maybe to allowing revisions in a legal document to have text removed, rather than struck through?
3. That from '2' because the lessons learnt are themselves lost, it becomes easier for perpetrators to do it again?

Sounds to me like retraction is still the right thing, but the nature of retraction that is wrong. Maybe retraction should not mean completely purging from the record, but being left in evidence - literally and obviously - that the publication has been retracted and why.

 

If the conclusion don't match the data especially after the data had to be forcibly released by a judge in court......

 

This reminds me of if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit

 

Or are they saying that they do see a problem but they see it with the conclusions/results - in that the numbers reported were hugely inflated.

 

An application of my proposed Bayes' Alchemy in action again @Woolie ?