Clinical effectiveness of an online group physical & mental health rehab programme for post-covid-19 condition REGAIN study, 2024, McGregor+

Thanks, Andy! I hadn't seen that. ADDED: And I notice that they have NOT corrected the invited commentary published alongside the paper. The commentary makes zero mention of the fact that these patients had been hospitalized. ADDED: Actually, it mentions this in the last paragraph.
 
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"Trial By Error: The BMJ Corrects REGAIN Study’s Expansive Claims; Results Only Applicable to Post-Hospitalized Long Covid Patients":

https://virology.ws/2024/11/18/tria...ble-to-post-hospitalized-long-covid-patients/

Thanks Dave, it's a corker and I think this one is really important.

I read through the last bit and it gave me a lot of thoughts:

It’s always laudable when journals and investigators agree to correct errors. But they do not deserve much credit for correcting false or obviously bogus statements that never should have been made in the first place. The study largely framed its findings as widely applicable to all PCC patients, so this major correction knocks the stuffing out of any such expansive declarations. But it does not fix the problems created by the initial publication. As far as I know, the media outlets and online influencers who touted the findings in the first place have not corrected the public record. So the false impression created by the study remains—and unfortunately will have an impact on the advice doctors provide and on the care patients receive.

Important to remind people of - I don't know if much has changed from the days of (other non-ME) things being written in the press that were 'found to be untrue/inaccurate' and then the cliche of expect an apology on page 480 in small print that noone reads many days later, but I'd like to think these journals think more of themselves than those heady days of the 90s press?

It's worth pointing out these things. Particularly as laypersons have that frame of reference to relate it to.

In fact, it seems the journal does not really seem to have taken the correction seriously. What leads me to that conclusion? Because an editorial published alongside the trial, which was commissioned by The BMJ and , features the same omissions that have now been corrected in the paper itself. The editorial touts the reported findings but only mentions in the last paragraph that the study participants had been hospitalized, with this sentence: “Trial inclusion criteria required a history of hospital admission for covid-19, and it is unknown if findings can be generalised to patients with milder infection who do not require admission.”

As with the paper itself, this salient limitation should have been mentioned in the most prominent parts of the editorial–and especially in the first reference to the study sample. As it is, the detail is presented as something of an afterthought.

What makes it so hard for them to correct these things?

Oh, and I can't help but read the word 'unknown' in the last word of the first para of this quote and wonder how in this context I get the sense the assumption / inference of that term goes vs when it was used so leadingly in the term 'MUS' where there was a strong insinuation of 'no known cause' ie functional ie 'the mind' ie we all know what they actually meant... women huh!

vs the unknown related to 'of course we didn't study that population at all, in fact we didn't lay eyes on one person with that condition... but who knows we've a gut feeling maybe this might apply based on ..?'

Somehow I'm starting to think of the 90s again (and before) and 'the art of innuendo' .. and the wink wink nudge nudge of Carry On films etc
 
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