Trial By Error: An Open Letter to Dr Godlee about BMJ’s Ethically Bankrupt Actions

Amazing sleuth work. Thank you for succinctly highlighting the slipperyness of it all. Surely retraction is the only option open now?
@dave30th, @Jonathan Edwards,@Carolyn Wilshire

 

I'm not sure if it's the results or just the graphs. I want to go back and recheck everything because it's possible my brainfog made a mess of everything. It's a very messy paper.

 

Eleven letters now....

http://www.virology.ws/2019/09/11/trial-by-error-experts-send-more-tough-letters-to-dr-godlee/

Again, thank you David and all letter writers.

 

That would be the Darkning Process then?

 

Missing the links to your previous posts in this sentence @dave30th

 

Well, someone has called the age in which we live "the Endarkenment".

 

LOL! I LOVE that retort!

 

The Science Bit: My letter to the BMJ regarding their lax editorial approach to bogus therapy paper

https://thesciencebit.net/2019/09/1...ax-editorial-approach-to-bogus-therapy-paper/

By Brian Hughes

Here it is. I think it is pretty self-explanatory (nonetheless, I have added some additional context below the fold):

Date: Sep 11, 2019

To: <Fiona Godlee>, Editor in Chief, BMJ

RE: BMJ’s scientifically and ethically indefensible decision about Bristol’s Lightning Process study

Dear Dr Godlee,

First of all, thank you for the work that you do as editor in chief of the BMJ. I do not at all mean this as faint praise. While my colleagues and I have expressed our concerns, I believe it is important to note that editing a journal is not always easy. Editors play a crucial part in the production line of science and your own contributions, and those of your editorial colleagues, need to be acknowledged.

Secondly, I feel obliged to add my voice to those others who have written to you about the paper “Clinical and cost-effectiveness of the Lightning Process in addition to specialist medical care for paediatric chronic fatigue syndrome: randomised controlled trial” and, particularly, the associated correction that was published…

 

Also @dave30th , Rebecca Goldin's letter has a typo

 

Hm. I added the links. I think I'll leave the typo since that's how it was sent.

 

Weird, they are there now, suggests it was a glitch at my end I guess.

 

Having used my current mental energy to post a comment on the latest batch of letters to Dr Godlee shared on the Virology Blog, I thought I would make the most of it and share it here too:

 

Hi, Andy--I had noticed the links weren't there. Then I noticed you mentioned it. Then I added them. No glitch. With the letter, I cut-and-pasted from what was sent to Dr Godlee. So that typo was original.

 

Would achieve the exact same outcome so why not? I would really love that. All the known quack treatments out there would achieve the same outcome if used with profuse promises that it "works". Astrology, LP, piss-on-a-hated-person's-grave, CBT for "unhelpful illness beliefs", free-candy-or-beer therapy, whatever. A fake outcome affecting only perception on self-rated questionnaires, the same outcome nonetheless.

I really think there is value in adding a deliberate quack control arm to those trials, since the thing that is normally used as the control for nothing is considered big and powerful because reasons. That fact that "nothing as control" performs better than actual "treatments" should be a damn big clue that it's a sham but apparently the opposite conclusion is believed. Again because reasons.

Normal arm, placebo control arm, quack control arm. For almost everyone of the psychosomatic trial of CFS with loose criteria, there would likely not be any statistical difference between the sham "treatment as usual" and the "holding a chicken foot and dream about not being sick anymore treatment" with relying on the usual biased questionnaires.

It would essentially disappear the entire body of evidence for psychosomatic treatments so I doubt that would happen but one would think the professional "skeptics" would be interested, except it's a bit too risky for the massive sunk cost that still goes into this.

 

And talk about "cost effective"... a quick Google search shows that you can get a voodoo practitioner to cast a spell for as little as $300!

[Possibly less if you have a coupon.]

 

So a full sized chicken should attract a reasonable discount

 

Blog by Steven Lubet about this publishes Rebecca Goldin's letter.

https://www.thefacultylounge.org/20...od-that-seemed-to-validated-the-so-calle.html

 

You need to multiply that be the number needed to treat though, and the amount of benefit in terms of Quality Adjusted Living Death Years