Statnews - BMJ should retract flawed research paper on chronic fatigue syndrome -STAT - David Tuller Dec 2019

Sly Saint

Sly Saint

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Few journals have been more admirable than the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) and some of its sister publications under the BMJ brand in highlighting issues of direct significance to health care consumers. So it is baffling — and troubling — when BMJ editors fail to take appropriate action to address unacceptable lapses in high-profile research they have published.

For years, the reading list for my journalism class on public health and medicine at the University of California, Berkeley, included groundbreaking articles in the BMJ on “disease-mongering” — how pharmaceutical companies have manipulated and misrepresented research data to expand existing diagnostic categories and create new ones. I have also appreciated BMJ’s campaign for open access to trial data and its forays into investigative journalism.

Much of this hard-hitting approach can be attributed to Dr. Fiona Godlee, the Cambridge University-educated physician who has led the organization since 2005. Godlee is both editorial director of BMJ, which publishes dozens of titles, and editor-in-chief of the BMJ, one of the world’s leading medical journals. A 2016 profile of Godlee in STAT called her a “crusading editor” who “aims to shake things up in science.” The BMJ, she told STAT, is “a campaigning journal.”
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That’s why I am disappointed at how BMJ and Godlee have handled a seriously problematic paper in a field I know well — behavioral and psychological interventions for the illness (or cluster of illnesses) often called chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) but also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), CFS/ME, and ME/CFS, among other names.
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full article here
https://www.statnews.com/2019/12/13...awed-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-research-paper/
 
Do you think the next utterance from the BMJ editor to staff will resemble this:

There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the Freedom of mankind alike depend upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.

Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig
11 April 1918

?
 
Each time I read @dave30th or others on this issue, I think how can it continue unresolved, how can the BMJ continue to defend the indefensible, but they do.

One can understand the authors or even Bristol University protecting themselves, doubling down on denial, but the BMJ ultimately has more to lose in its international reputation than it has to gain from the gratitude of a small cabal of largely British researchers. Why does the BMJ continue to defend the indefensible?

Thank you to all who continue to seek to protect children with ME from the very real harm that this unscientific and unethical research promotes.
 
Barry said:
I also like the slightly different approach - praising the good stuff initially. That will probably bring more people on board; more likely to accept that the bad bits are just as objective as the good bits.
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well, it was strategic for the reasons you suggest, but it was also sincere. I love those disease-mongering articles in BMJ--that was a very important effort. The journal has done some good things under Dr Godlee. Unfortunately, not in this realm of science.
 
Looking forward to what medical professionals think of a tarot-diagnosing hand-healing quack who says he can cure MS by shouting STOP being published by the BMJ and defended by the editorial board. Just because he wasn't directly involved with SMILE, that we know of anyway, doesn't change anything.

Will they be more skeptical of blatant pseudoscience, or do they dislike us more? So far the balance has been pretty awful but it's clear that there has been a lot of denial about the basic facts. It was slightly more believable with influential psychiatrists lying about their intentions and misusing treatments that are common for unrelated purposes, it's a lot harder to defend NLP and that's probably the least BS part of what LP is.

Though one trend is clear, biased researchers swapping outcomes to cherry-pick positive results, so hot right now. Even has the approval of regulators. You can "prove" anything you want with that. Is medicine really OK with ditching the scientific method on whims? We'll find out soon enough. Not that it would hold for more than a few years but the choice is very clear right now.
 
Excellent. More clear and precise writing hitting the target.

I can't help but wonder when reading articles like this one as to what type and how much pressure there is from some outside source to keep this particular area of research 'viable'. And not to be all conspiracy minded but exactly who is this person/group who alternately put pressure on or protect these researchers and the people who support them.

Am I seeing bogey-men where there are none? Not only do otherwise reasonable people protect and defend the indefensible but many get rewarded. I would so much like to understand what is going on here.

Ultimately, I presume my musings are futile.

And I do think that with articles like this one the tide of individuals understanding how problematic this research is will force a change.
 
Snowdrop said:
Am I seeing bogey-men where there are none?
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Personally I agree with you. There are people in society who gain their influence and power by distinctly Machiavellian means. Self-centred skill at social engineering, combined with lack of scruples, trumps lack of ability they claim to have. There's nothing unusual about it; for some people it is a life-style choice.
 
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Barry said:
Personally I agree with you. There are people in society who gain their influence an power by distinctly Machiavellian means. Self-centred skill at social engineering, combined with lack of scruples, trumps lack of ability they claim to have. There's nothing unusual about it; for some people it is a life-style choice.
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This is how it seems to me. Of course there has always been this type around but now it seems like they are becoming as common as toxic plastic washing up on the beach. It's disheartening to see such a tsunami of human corruption.

I admire those that are able and do fight the good fight.
 
Snowdrop said:
This is how it seems to me. Of course there has always been this type around but now it seems like they are becoming as common as toxic plastic washing up on the beach. It's disheartening to see such a tsunami of human corruption.

I admire those that are able and do fight the good fight.
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I very much doubt there are any more. But modern communications has made it easier for them to collaborate, whilst also making it easier to expose them.
 
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