Petition: S4ME 2023 - Cochrane: Withdraw the harmful 2019 Exercise therapy for CFS review

It is not normal practice.
I may be wrong but it seems a flagrant misuse of editorial powers and the editor in chief should resign.
We were told that the old review could not be removed because of a rule newly created to make it impossible. Pretending that it is now a new publication without any peer review seems a farce.

It is worth remembering that there was a point in the process where reviews were gathered 'more widely' (beyond psychological medicine) to assess the Larun output as a result of concerns about objectivity. That now seems to belong to a different universe.

 

It's just amazing how there's no kind of not-marking-your-own-homework ethical enforcement authority to appeal to in this situation.

 

This is on top of the farce of the “living systematic review” which managed to do meta analyses of single studies to produce different results from the original studies (which were themselves flawed). I suspect some of the same people involved too.

PACE has been used to teach university students how not to conduct trials. The BPS enthusiasts are now giving us an object lesson in scientific slight of hand. They appear to have gone into full-on post-truth mode now, as though they don’t even care how blatant their dishonesty is. We can’t discuss politics on here but there are many parallels with what is happening in certain parts of the world.

 

@Yann04 has a lot of great friends

 

I remember this, I think. Wasn't he quoted in Kate Kelland's Reuters piece about how activists were trying to spike a great exercise review?

 

No, it is not normal. It is very unethical.

 

Hahaha I did see a couple on there but the vast majority of the new signees are from the MEA newsletter I think.

 

'
Just to be clear on this, I only know of this at my own place, the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. It has been used in epidemiology graduate seminars. Plus, Bruce Levin, a Columbia biostatistician, gave a talk there called "How NOT to Conduct a Clinical Trial." Robert's statement is definitely true but--as far as my personal knowledge goes--it only applies to Berkeley students. I am sometimes concerned this claim has morphed into a general statement as if it has happenned a lot and at many universities.

 

I vaguely remember Ron Davis saying he used it to teach at stanford too but perhaps my memory is fuzzy.

 

I sincerely hope you’re wrong. But a part of me knows you’re right.

 

It's kind of funny how "peer review" is held up as some sort of authority when it explicitly translates into "no oversight" and sometimes can be "my buddy down the hall".

When you've seen enough of this, "was it peer-reviewed?" is such an inane comment since it does not provide any actual quality control. This system has held up on the fiction of academics being better people than the average Joe, and in this case we have the double appeal to authority of "doctors wouldn't do something to harm their patients", when actually both propositions are complete fantasy.

It should be like that. Just like all police officers should be ethical people and judges should have, you know, good judgment, but in reality no system can ever work like that. And this remains true, academia functions like this, but it doesn't work. In truth, peer review has even less value than a "QC passed" sticker on a piece of technology. It may mean that this part works, according to the manufacturer, and that's all it really means.

 

It's also not really convincing in itself, as the PACE trial is definitely taught at more universities as a great example of high quality evidence-based medicine.

For sure one side of this is correct and the other isn't, but that hardly matters. What matters is what people believe. Even in academia. Maybe especially in academia. So many beliefs.

 

isn't Wednesday the news day for getting things to the media too?