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Concerns about Cochrane

Discussion in 'Other health news and research' started by Kalliope, Sep 14, 2018.

  1. ME/CFS Skeptic

    ME/CFS Skeptic Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Could you explain this a little more? Do you mean that he focuses too much on the pharmacological industry as a source of bias + his aversion to vaccines and anti-depressants?
     
    MEMarge likes this.
  2. Esther12

    Esther12 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Kind of... I'm not sure it's fair to say he has an 'aversion to vaccines' generally, but to me he seems to have gone too far in some of his criticism of the HPV vaccine.

    Also, while I see the pharma industry as pretty corrupt, I also think of pharma research as generally being of better quality than what we see from the biopsychosocial stuff we see, but some researchers critical of pharma can ignore problems elsewhere.

    Maybe I shouldn't comment on this, as I've not gone through taking detailed notes on Gøtzsche, so this impression is really no more than a hunch.
     
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  3. TiredSam

    TiredSam Committee Member

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    Hmm.
     
  4. inox

    inox Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    This might be useful for a new thread? I'm sure many are not aware. I may mis-remember, but belive I've seen some workshop with patients advocates as well
     
  5. inox

    inox Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Mad in America - Institutional Corruption in the Cochrane Collaboration, by Peter Gøtzsche.

    Not sure what part to quote - it's about what happened around the expelling and the board meeting. Also about launching his new initiative "Instititute for Scientific Freedom".

     
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  6. Sean

    Sean Moderator Staff Member

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    Something else significant happened that year, just can't quite recall what it was at the moment. :whistle:
     
  7. Snow Leopard

    Snow Leopard Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
     
  8. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

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    ‘Evidence-Based Medicine’ and the Expulsion of Peter Gøtzsche
    https://undark.org/2019/12/30/peter-gotzsche-cochrane/
     
  9. Kalliope

    Kalliope Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    The article was picked up by Medscape. Long, but interesting read.

    The seeming suddenness of his expulsion, and what critics view as its misguided pretext, has exposed rifts that go back decades: debates about the pharmaceutical industry's influence on medicine and about the research community's tolerance of dissent. More fundamentally, Gøtzsche's expulsion has crystalized a longstanding debate about the proper role of data in the practice of medicine.

    https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/923214
     
  10. Kalliope

    Kalliope Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Blog post from Hilda Bastian summarising the Gøtzsche/Cochrane saga.

    Gøtzsche and the Cochrane collaboration: A timeline

    Too much bureaucracy is bad, for sure. But for a research institute, so is too little. Transparency and accountability, even when you don’t think you need advice, safeguard honesty and integrity in public life. Skirting around anyone who could slow you down and make you consider and justify things more carefully, and demonizing people who criticize your ideas or your tactics, is not a path to integrity, good science, or policy in the public interest.

    Gøtzsche has said: “My view is that a hero is someone who has other genes than non-heroes…There are a few odd people like me who have something different in our genes….” It’s a biological trait that constitutes him for leadership, and communities turn to people like him with these “special genes” in a crisis, he said. I think that belief and self-image explains a lot. I am glad the Cochrane Collaboration is no longer tethered to every issue he might take up.
     
  11. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    From that blog
    ie the Cochrane Exercise review
     
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  12. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    BMJ again.
    don't think Cochrane are blameless; but it would seem that Gotzsche is not the messiah but a very naughty boy.
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2020
  13. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Well that is very interesting.
     
  14. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    He is on the wrong side of the ME issue (and I guess discriminated chronic diseases as well?) so there isn't much hope that whatever he "heroically" does has any positive impact on us. He seems very much into BPS woo, unless I totally misread him, as a principle against overmedicalisation and preferring any alternative to drugs, no matter how kooky. Which has its merits, but the BPS/FND/MUS model is way worse for us so not an improvement. If Cochrane does lose some of its influence to his initiative, it's doubtful it would be any better.

    Frankly it mostly appears to be a personal thing for him. Not sure, but I think this is more about politics than about science. I'm not confident it will be any good for the patients. The status quo is disastrous however so any change is preferable if it keeps the usual suspects at bay, but I'm not sure that it would.
     
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  15. Hoopoe

    Hoopoe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Gøtzsche has not taken a position on the PACE trial, MUS, CBT/GET, ME/CFS as far as I know. Some people tried to bring this to his attention but he doesn't seem interested.
     
  16. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I thought he had written some papers with Sharpe or even co-authored the Cochrane exercise review but that was a derp I just mixed his name with Paul Glasziou, which isn't particularly close so yay brain.
     
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  17. Caroline Struthers

    Caroline Struthers Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    No - she has never been critical of the Cochrane exercise review.
     
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  18. Caroline Struthers

    Caroline Struthers Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I am sure she has never criticized the exercise review...
     
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  19. Caroline Struthers

    Caroline Struthers Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Yes, it's much more about politics than science. And yes, he is obsessed with the evils of drugs - with good reason - but so ignores the crap science churned out by the BPS brigade.
     
  20. Caroline Struthers

    Caroline Struthers Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Wow. Just read her blog. And she says she is critical of the Exercise review. Well good. Glad I bugged her about it for ages on Twitter
     
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