I was pondering the question how could QMUL, implicit in their own claims, miss the facts that one of their Proffessors was retiring and that this would mean that they would not be able to access a significant set data even though they were concurrently fighting several prominent freedom of information requests in relation to that data?
For the cynically minded this raises all sorts of questions about whether or not this is an excuse on the part of QMUL to avoid releasing any further data from this highly controversial study: as people have already raised, what is so peculiar about this data or its storage that only the original investigators whilst in the employ of QMUL can access it, is there no duplicate sets of the data held by the other insitutions involved in the research or by the privileged few other academics that were allowed to see it that could be authorised for release by QMUL, how can further articles and PACE follow ups be planned if the original data is no longer accessible, how can Prof White be simultaneously available to head up this follow up under QMUL and not available to access the data for a freedom of information request, etc
Alternatively one could naively give QMUL the benefit of the doubt and wonder if they were some how taken by surprise by the retirement of Prof White. Can we assume that he was due to retire at 65 years or would that be discretionary for a proffessor? If 65 was his retirement age then it would seem he went a matter of months early, aged 64 yrs, leaving both his academic work at QMUL and his clinical practice at Barts. Is it fair or reasonable to ask why he took early retirement? Some suggest this should be asked, see
http://niceguidelines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/pace-trials-principal-investigator.html . That Prof White continues to be active on the insurance lecture circuit and is listed as the lead in the ongoing PACE work is at best confusing. I do not know enough myself to fairly make any comments on this early retirement, but certainly believe that QMUL have questions to answer as to why they failed to undertake any contingency planning in relation to this internationally significant data.
(Added shortly after posting: QMUL either have been incompetent or are being untruthful, and the FOI process needs to demand which it is. As a commentor on one of the threads raised, could this in itself be the subject of a FOI request?)