Anomalies in the review process and interpretation of the evidence in the NICE guideline for (CFS & ME), 2023, White et al

NICE has not published the response they said they would write to counter the accusations of misconduct here. It's been several months. Is it possible to get answers from them? Did they give up on it? Got convinced by chums, similar to the attempts to get them to corrupt the guidelines process?

It has been several months now since multiple rapid responses were submitted, and only two have been published. The rest have been censored without the journal providing any reason for it.
 
Trial By Error: Update on NICE Response to “Anomalies” Paper; Higher ME/CFS Population Estimates in CDC Survey

"While it was known that NICE had submitted a response, details have generally been lacking. I recently learned that NICE submitted a response on October 1st, which was peer-reviewed; NICE submitted a revision on November 9th. After a second round of peer review, NICE’s response was sent to the “editorial committee” on December 7th for a final decision. That decision is still being awaited—or at least no decision is noted on the manuscript timeline in the JNNP editorial portal."

https://virology.ws/2024/01/03/tria...er-me-cfs-population-estimates-in-cdc-survey/
 
I’m not suggesting that it would necessarily be appropriate or helpful but I’m wondering if the correspondence between NICE and JNNP would be covered by the FOI act. As far as I understand peer-review is normally confidential so it might be an interesting case. I guess there have been some communications outside of the formal peer review process, as with the “there is a way” texts to Gillian Leng.

I also wonder if NICE might choose to publish its unedited version, as MEAction UK did. As @dave30th suggests in his blog, they could publish it a pre-print.
 
I’m not suggesting that it would necessarily be appropriate or helpful but I’m wondering if the correspondence between NICE and JNNP would be covered by the FOI act. As far as I understand peer-review is normally confidential so it might be an interesting case. I guess there have been some communications outside of the formal peer review process, as with the “there is a way” texts to Gillian Leng.

I also wonder if NICE might choose to publish its unedited version, as MEAction UK did. As @dave30th suggests in his blog, they could publish it a pre-print.
I was wondering if NICE could publish their correspondence - I assume they can. However, lets see whether JNNP finally publish NICE's response!
 
I’ve said this before but I hope it’s as good as it needs to be. My hopes are unusually high, which is probably unwise given the history of ME/CFS.

It will be very interesting to see what media coverage it gets, given the prominence that was given to the article it is responding to.

I also wonder how much the NICE press office will push it.
 
NICE’s response has been published but annoyingly, unlike the original article, it’s behind a paywall: https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/2024/02/28/jnnp-2023-332731

Abstract
In 2021, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence produced an evidence-based guideline on the diagnosis and management of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a disabling long-term condition of unknown cause. The guideline provides clear support for people living with ME/CFS, their families and carers, and for clinicians. A recent opinion piece published in the journal suggested that there were anomalies in the processing and interpretation of the evidence when developing the guideline and proposed eight areas where these anomalies were thought to have occurred. We outline how these opinions are based on a misreading or misunderstanding of the guideline process or the guideline, which provides a balanced and reasoned approach to the diagnosis and management of this challenging condition.
 
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