Steven Lubet: Trial by Error: Professor Sharpe's intemperate remarks for whom is he speaking?

Well that was a refreshing read. I do hope that there is more to come, I really enjoyed that.

 

Exactly. More as a thought experiment.

 

That nobody is stopping Sharpe could mean that PACE authors are now in the phase where it is becoming apparent that the defenses will not hold out. That's the phase where they start prioritizing self interest over group interest. Wessely seemed to mainly want to distance himself from PACE. He is looking out for himself and doesn't mind if Sharpe makes a fool of himself.

 

Which may also be when they start blaming each other.

 

I disagree, its a tactic of even if we ignore A, B, C then this is true. But if we ignore A, B, C then we give those things a pass. We need to fire on all cylinders. What i am saying is the article is great as it is but at the end i would revisit A, B and C (or make them a new article) because they are just as serious if not more so a piece of this fraud

 

I think it's worth being aware that lots of people, especially those floating around UK academic research whose opinions matter, do not like anything that hints at an accusation of dishonesty where there is not overwhelming evidence that dishonesty has occurred. To me it seems like some hold-over of gentlemanly values of the past. I think it's often a sensible tactic to focus for now on the areas where we face slightly less instinctive resistance. At the same time though, I think it's good to have different people taking slightly different approaches, so long as people don't get so carried away that they set us back.

 

But there is

 

They're more serious.
But if every article concentrates on the same items we might miss a new angle.

The new angle exposes a side to the PACE brigade, that they can conceal until we temporarily, for the sake of argument, accept A, B and C.

 

It's very hard to distinguish between incompetence, delusion and dishonesty. Privileged people like to bend over backwards giving one another the benefit of the doubt.

 

Its not a new angle, its one piece of the puzzle. I have no argument with the article as is, but i would visit the other pieces as more evidence of malfeasance (maybe in the next article?)

It is not. Rewriting a study to get the results you promised is fraud, not incompetence.

Good for them, playing by rules that benefit them at our expense hurts us.

 

Proving the 'to' is difficult though.

Ignoring the prejudices we face, and the cultural values of those we seek to persuade, also hurts us. It's not about playing by someone else's rules, but trying to think about what is the most effective way of achieving what we want.

 

I would say not adhering to the original protocol then inventing one that makes your results look good (not to mention the biases added by trying to convince patients and the trial format) makes a rather airtight case.

I agree with tailoring the message to the audience but one can do both in this case.

 

I think that very many of the people we need to persuade would disagree with you. Otherwise, we'd have won this years ago!

 

I would patently disagree with you, if people don't want to hear about fraud then you can't convince them by being more polite about it
Fortune favours the bold.

 

If "not adhering to the original protocol then inventing one that makes your results look good (not to mention the biases added by trying to convince patients and the trial format) makes a rather airtight case", then all we would need to do is point out those problems with PACE. We did back in 2011, but didn't find an army of academics shouting 'fraud' back in 2011. Instead, we had a load of influential people complaining of misguided and unreasonable patients making unfounded accusations of fraud.

 

So everyone will listen if your extra polite?
I get that the grass is greener on the other side but if it were that simple then the political right would get nowhere and would have been laughed off the face of the planet long ago, they are most impolite and they win.

 

@Esther12 and @Alvin I think there is room for both approaches. All movements have those more moderate and working sometimes from the inside, and those who are more aggressive and shout from the outside. I think in general both are needed for progress. I don't think Lubet's post is actually trying to persuade people to ignore that the things they did were pretty bad. He's just conducting a thought experiment: Even if we were to agree to put these things aside, there are still major issues with the PACE position. That's not the same as saying, Hey, let's put all these things aside forever. He's not absolving them of anything. He's making an argument.

 

Very true
No offense meant on my part

 

Bad things happen when good people do nothing - something to that effect. ...

 

Yes but lots are not buying the crap now including MPs, doctors, journalists, academics, NICE, US health care bodies. I think fraud is either fraud not fraud, its not based on how long it takes people to really look at it because previously they have been too busy or because they were too trusting of a spun argument previously.

That's the best concise summary of supporting evidence of fraud I have read. Especially as the DWP are on record saying they partly funded the study because they said they believed it would add supporting evidence to, "work is good for your health".

They changed the protocols halfway through the effing trial to show efficacy for their preferred treatments when there was zero scientific efficacy for them in the original protocol.

They did this with tax payers money.