Key Concepts for Informed Health Choices: a framework for helping people learn how to assess treatment claims and make informed choices.

Key Concepts for Informed Health Choices: a framework for helping people learn how to assess treatment claims and make informed choices.

Chalmers I, Oxman AD, Austvoll-Dahlgren A, et al. BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine 2018; 23:29–33.

http://ebm.bmj.com/content/ebmed/23/1/29.full.pdf. (full text is free)

A list of some of the key concepts:

 

It all seems very sensible and plausible. So why is Chalmers associated with the Norwegian centre where courses are run by Larun and Brurberg, who write Cochrane reviews that make all these mistakes?

 

Lancet. 2017 Mar 11;389(10073):1006-1007. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30657-8.
What are funders doing to minimise waste in research?
Nasser M1, Clarke M2, Chalmers I3, Brurberg KG4, Nykvist H5, Lund H6, Glasziou P7.

 

Link straight to full text, http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)30657-8/fulltext

 

Research really needs patient interests to be properly represented, doesn't it.

 

Glasziou P has been attempting to defend PACE, and is one of the co-authors of the Cochrane protocol for the CFS exercise review.

 

The irony seems palpable:

'Our survey shows that information on the policies and processes used by research funding agencies to reduce waste and support methodological research and research infrastructure is generally not transparent or readily available. It appears that the processes of governance do not, in general, hold accountable the funding agencies we have surveyed for assessing whether and how they address the questions raised by the reduce research waste framework.'

 

So what is really going on here?

Is it that Chalmers, like Taverne, has unwittingly spawned a Frankenstein's monster of an organisation that propagates the opposite of what is intended, or is this a group of people who genuinely do not understand that they are prime examples of their own bêtes noirs?

I am reminded of the chap in Edinburgh (?Macleod) who gave his inaugural lecture on bad science, and of course of Ben Goldacre.

Is this in fact a new psychiatric disease idiotruncumoptosis (having a beam in one's own eye) potentially resistant to all forms of psychotherapy?

 

So the question is: did @Woolie know that one of the authors of this piece was also on a GET Cochrane review supporting the BPS approach? Was that the reason for posting?

 

Or is it people wanting to be seen promoting best practice, so their other endeavours will be presumed, by association, conforming to that best practice?

 

That would certainly apply to some of the co-authors of the GET review, but where does Chalmers stand? As far as I know he has o'other endeavours' beyond furthering best practice.

 

I smelt hypocrisy right away. Especially give that it was recommended on twitter by some of the worst offenders. What they say seems reasonable - even useful to put it all together - but we know some of these authors do not follow their own advice.

 

Mimicry is a survival strategy employed by many animals. It seems that humans may employ what could be called virtue mimicry (giving the impression of embracing certain virtues, when in reality doing no such thing). Or maybe I'm just overthinking this and reinventing hypocrisy... but a case could be made for this being a deliberate strategy.

Richard Horton also came across as big on hypocrisy. I'm guessing it helps to be seen on twitter showing compassion with poor African children while helping PACE authors exploit hundred thousands of patients with pseudoscience.

 

No, I don't feel you are overthinking this at all, you are spot on. It's part of the hiding in plain sight strategy some people do - whether they do it consciously, or is just second nature, is another matter. But I think it is more than hypocrisy, because there is an objective behind it.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1161003716448624640

Code:

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1161003716448624640

(Not sure whether this deserves its own thread.)

Edit:
Maynard, Matt/ Oxman, Andrew/ Pullin, Nicola et al (2019), Key concepts for making informed choices, Nature, vol 572 (15 Aug 2019),
https://www.nature.com/magazine-assets/d41586-019-02407-9/d41586-019-02407-9.pdf

Andrew Oxman is mentioned as an advisor in the e-mail exchange on the Cochrane review between Atle Fretheim and David Tovey
see https://www.s4me.info/threads/cochr...developments-2018-19.10030/page-4#post-179971

 

A quick look at this list suggests every single thing produced as part of the psychosocial model of ME fails on every single point. PACE particularly excels, along with others in the series of bad acronym trials. Literally. Every. Single. Point. It's even missing several things that those trials did because they are so evidently fraudulent that it's expected no one would actually try them. And yet here we are.

Somehow I guess this will be exempted. Somehow.

I will still put forward that I would very much this framework to apply to all research on ME. One day, when we are taken off the blacklist anyway.

 

Chalmers: the Godfather

Astrid Austvoll-Dahlgren: Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Andrew Oxman: Tovey/Fretheim exchange
Allen Nsangi: working with Oxman at Oslo
Paul Glasziou: author on previous exercise review with Larun
Loai Albarqouni: works with Glasziou - a successor to Hilda.
David Nunan: on the new review

Nelson Sewankambo: Ugandan physician
Daniel Semakula: Ugandan physician
Douglas Badenoch: Evidence based health care (National Elf Service)
Kamal Mahtani and Carl Heneghan: Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine
Selena Ryan-Vig: Cochrane educator
Sarah Pannell: school biology teacher involved in public education in medicine

 

It seems that Henegan has been quite controversial because of his statements about COVID_19.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1402034988267212808