Petition: S4ME 2023 - Cochrane: Withdraw the harmful 2019 Exercise therapy for CFS review

Exactly. From the the IAG website:



So new research was seen as an issue only "in addition".

Full transparency of who's responsible for the rejection of the protocol and this outcome's spurious 'explanation' I think is a legitimate request .


Edit: quote
And if there is no new research then the need to withdraw is even more required given the excuse for not withdrawing was never there anyway just some selling that somehow ‘look it’ll be something new’ and times would move on if people just let them keep the old one up etc

I think it’s very important to pull out the assessments of that 2019 review snd info about it being withdrawn then reinstated only on that basis made very public ?
 
Its as if their 'new review' proposal was just a delaying tactic. They were told that it was unethical to keep the old review up whilst they did a new one. But they did.

It makes me wonder how anyone would ever take Cochrane seriously as an organization.

One thing I have wondered is if we should go through many more of their reviews pointing out all the issues. I suspect very strongly all their mental health ones are very dodgy.
Sounds a sensible next step in order to stop then making it ‘just the cfs people don’t like their outcome’ to look at any patterns

I’m curious to know about mcmaster uni too and the connection there as I’ve only just realised it I assume most won’t have noticed it. I find that interesting given the recent Canadian guideline for example to know more about them and why etc?
 
Too late, I think. Today's announcement from Cochrane specifies that any complaint has to go via the official Cochrane complaints procedure, and any addressed to anyone else will be ignored.
I wonder if it would be worth writing to Susan Philips not to complain, but to point out the collapse in faith in Cochrane on the part of PwME and express our disappointment. The point would be to reach someone who might care, without risking their secretary just binning the email because it falls into the 'complaint' category.
 
Too late, I think. Today's announcement from Cochrane specifies that any complaint has to go via the official Cochrane complaints procedure, and any addressed to anyone else will be ignored.
She may personally want to know she is harming patients.

Sounds like someone in the Cochrane org is trying to control the message internally,
 
I wonder if it would be worth writing to Susan Philips not to complain, but to point out the collapse in faith in Cochrane on the part of PwME and express our disappointment. The point would be to reach someone who might care, without risking their secretary just binning the email because it falls into the 'complaint' category.

It does feel worth doing. She probably doesn't know what is going on with this and may not want to be associated with bad politics, bad science and harming patients. It won't be good for her image,
 
Too late, I think. Today's announcement from Cochrane specifies that any complaint has to go via the official Cochrane complaints procedure, and any addressed to anyone else will be ignored.

Yes but since all the complaints so far have been ignored anyway, I'm not sure the situation has changed. I feel disinclined to jump through Cochrane's hoops by following their restrictions. If anyone has the energy, I would think it worth having a go at writing to whoever it is thought might be useful. I think we should follow our own counsel. I don't recognise Cochrane's right to instruct us as to who we can communicate with.
 
I think we previously concluded that as they were a charity, in the UK they are not subject to the FOI legislation. The only way around this would be if the issue asked about related to work funded or commissioned by a body that was subject to the FOI legislation, when the request would have to go to that body for them to find out what happened.

However, if they are academics working at UK universities they may be subject to FoI. I wonder about the US/EU etc.
 
If only they would withdraw the old exercise review, I have no problem with Cochrane abandoning any replacement. The 2019 version was flawed and out of date when it was published and has been superseded by the NICE ME/CFS guidelines with its evidence review already in draft by the time Larun et al was published.

Though obviously Cochrane have no intention of withdrawing the 2019 review, their decision not to go ahead on a new review must seriously weaken their arguments for keeping it.

Hopefully @dave30th will have a blog on this relatively soon.

Hopefully he will!!
 
Hopefully he will!!

Could you ask the Cochrane press office for an interview with the chair of the governors about how they are letting patients down and getting a growing reputation for backing politics above science? You could also say you are trying to get interviews with government ministers in charge of bodies that fund them. In fact a request for a statement from Andrew Qwynne to see if the UK government have an opinion since they are a funder of Cochrane may be interesting.
 
However, if they are academics working at UK universities they may be subject to FoI. I wonder about the US/EU etc.

The Universities could say the person’s role at Cochrane was independent of the University and they have no access to information on this. Perhaps if you could demonstrate that they were paid by their university to participate in Cochrane related activities then you could ask the university about that?
 
The Universities could say the person’s role at Cochrane was independent of the University and they have no access to information on this. Perhaps if you could demonstrate that they were paid by their university to participate in Cochrane related activities then you could ask the university about that?

It depends if academic emails are used then they have access (and should have search facilities). But universities have very poor information (and staff) governance,
 
The Universities could say the person’s role at Cochrane was independent of the University and they have no access to information on this. Perhaps if you could demonstrate that they were paid by their university to participate in Cochrane related activities then you could ask the university about that?
Are they actually’bought out’ of their uni contract like eg a research project would do for x % of their time fir x months etc?
 
I wonder what Hilda Bastian has to say about this?

It is clear the decision was based on internal politics rather than the science.

I suspect that Hilda went into the process with the best of intentions, but has in part been got at by her BPS Cochrane contemporaries and can’t quite believe they have got it so wrong. But also she is too much a Cochrane loyalist to challenge the organisation publicly and certainly has allowed herself to be silenced for some eighteen months or even longer.

The long and the short is I doubt Hilda will say anything that could be seen as disparaging Cochrane, though she has been messed about by them as much as anyone else.
 
Are they actually’bought out’ of their uni contract like eg a research project would do for x % of their time fir x months etc?

I suspect they are doing things for a Cochrane as part of their work paid for by the employing university or health trust but if it is not specified in their job description the university or other might try to get out of responsibility in FOI terms.

When I was still working participation in regional and national clinical or policy groups was written in my job description and the general details of what I did had to be agreed with my line manager. I did more hours on such things in my own time than I was paid for but it was clearly part of my work for the employing health trust. But for more senior academics or doctors less this is likely to be written down or explicitly requiring line manager approval.
 
Davenport was on the review writing group appointed by Cochrane to write the new protocol and review.
So they rejected the protocol of the group they appointed after years of waiting around giving no signs of life. Without giving any actual reason. Although if Davenport was involved, I assume that the main reason is that the protocol would obviously correct the problems with the current review and find, as NICE did, that this stuff is worthless.

Good stuff. Just amazing.
 
The more I think about, the more I think the announcement of the timeline for the Australian NHMRC ME/CFS Guideline is likely to have played a part in this. It's a really slow process - some 4 years. Paul Glasziou is likely to be having some say in what the NHMRC does - he was an author of the NHMRC Guideline for Guidelines. And Lloyd - both strong proponents of CBT and GET for CFS. Glasziou likely had a hand in the recent and appalling update of a guide for Australian GPs on treating CFS. (and of course he was Hilda's PhD supervisor and they both have major history in the development of Cochrane.)

There's no way that the psychosomatic crowd could have a new Cochrane review coming out in the next couple of years saying that GET doesn't work. I think Cochrane pulling the pin on the new review is an acknowledgement that someone influential is not confident that it would find the "right" answer.
 
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@Medfeb
Is the author group considering doing the review anyway, or does the presence of Cochrane employees mean that the author team composition would have to change?
Is there any clarity on who owns the protocol? I guess a non-Cochrane review could still be done by a new team. As the years go by, a review published in 2019 has to look pretty irrelevant, especially if there is a newer one.

Cochrane sent an email to the authors today stating the following:
Authors’ rights: If a Cochrane Review is withdrawn at any stage before publication, the authors’ rights in the unpublished review are unchanged, and the authors can use the content elsewhere (such as for publication in a journal, or for research purposes), on the condition that the work is not titled, described, or referred to as a 'Cochrane Review'.

Cochrane’s rights: Cochrane will retain a copy of the withdrawn Cochrane Review submission for archival purposes. Cochrane retains the rights to the elements within a withdrawn submission that were developed by Cochrane, such as the search strategy and templates. Cochrane may publish a Cochrane Review using elements developed by Cochrane for the withdrawn review and may use the same title and address the same question as the withdrawn review. This will be an entirely new work and, potentially, an entirely new author team.​

I'm unclear on how the authors rights work given there are multiple authors, some of whom work for Cochrane.

The bigger questions for me are:
1) whether a review by another group would be accepted or just dismissed, favoring the Cochrane review. For instance, Wormgoor has already done a review of the evidence for physiotherapy for ME.
2) Do the last two lines suggest Cochrane is planning to repeat the review themselves?

Edited to add - should have listed NICE's review in addition to Wormgoor. Others out there as well
 
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