David Tuller: Trial By Error: My 2011 NY Times Exchange With the PACE PIs

My 2011 NY Times Exchange With the PACE PIs

When the PACE trial was published in early 2011, my New York Times editor sent it to me, along with the press release. As a non-staff contributor to the Times, I had started covering the debate over the mouse retrovirus hypothesis and science, but I’d heard nothing about anything called PACE or graded exercise therapy. I got a few hours to whip something up for the next day’s news coverage. Knowing nothing, I reported the findings as best I could. Unfortunately, I took them more or less at face value.

 

Seven years on: I bet the PACE researchers wish they hadn't written that narky letter now.

I'm sure there are other examples of people who had little concerns about PACE, got heavy push-back from PACE researchers, and that helped prompt them into digging more deeply into it. Can't remember who though.

 

Yes, their effort to snow me and the NY Times and to secure an unwarranted correction certainly interested me in pursuing the case further, once I had the chance.

 

They got something right then