Response: Sharpe, Goldsmith and Chalder fail to restore confidence in the PACE trial findings

As I said on the other thread, I think @Tom Kindlon and @Carolyn Wilshire ’s response is perfect. Thanks again to both of you.

I’ve shared the PACE authors’ admission with Tim Hartford (BBC More or Less) and David Colquhoun on Twitter. Can anyone think of anyone else it might be worth sharing with? I’m assuming it’s a waste of time trying to engage Ben Goldacre again but, as with dropping actigraphy, it is so blatant I can’t believe that it wouldn’t immediately ring alarm bells for anyone with any understanding of clinical trials.


Also shared @Graham ’s excellent PACE videos with Harford:
 
Last edited:
Jonathan Edwards said:
I don't see how scientists can survive saying this in the long term:

We prefer the definitions of recovery we used to those used by Wilshire et al. as they give absolute rates more consistent both with the literature, and with our clinical experience.
Click to expand...
I don't think they can, unless our whole scientific establishment is rotten to the core ... which I cannot imagine to be the case. The more they expose themselves in this way, the more they allow real scientists (and other people too with a degree of nous) to see them for what they are. That statement will probably go down in history as one of the most revealing. Not even a throwaway statement, but in a written rebuttal. They could not be leaving a clearer, more solid evidence trail if they tried. To me, the very fact they lack the critical thinking to appreciate they are doing this to themselves, itself supports the notion they lack the critical thinking to run clinical trials.
 
Robert 1973 said:
I’ve shared the PACE authors’ admission with Tim Hartford (BBC More or Less)
Click to expand...
I had pondered this myself; felt need to be very cautious given there is so very much to learn with PACE, and the BBC have such a track record of going off half-cocked when it comes to getting under the skin of such things. Last thing you want is for something like More or Less to do a half-baked analysis, and then make some wiffley waffley proclamation that does more harm than good. But on the other hand, if they could be trusted to get it right ... that would be excellent.
 
From the rejoinder of the recovery reanalysis:
Sharpe et al. [3] refer to a number of studies performed by them and their collaborators which they believe provide independent support for their final recovery definition. They refer to several studies where the recovery rates following CBT, and/or following medical care alone, were numerically similar to the corresponding rates in their recovery paper (e.g. [8,9]). These observations are claimed as support for the use of their revised definition. Putting aside the issue of whether these studies are indeed representative of the literature, there are serious problems with this reasoning. First, most of the cited studies defined recovery differently to PACE, and if we make even a reasonable attempt to equate the definitions, then the convergence amongst recovery rates does not look quite so good.2

2 For example, the definition of recovery used in the studies by Deale et al. [8] and Knoop et al. [9] were a lot stricter than the revised criteria used in PACE. If the Deale et al. recovery criteria are applied to the PACE data, for example (it is possible to use three of the four criteria), the PACE recovery rates fall to a maximum of 9% for CBT, which is very different from the 24% for CBT cited in Deale et al.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
strategist said:
Sharpe is apparently blocking everyone on Twitter that shares this article.
Click to expand...
karikatur-schwein-sitzt-in-a-teich-von-tränen-und-cries-illustration_csp62046821.jpg

Baaaaahhhh!
 
D2mF9jfXgAA-5eG

Twice as many people are cured of cancer using reiki as opposed to homeopathy.

Under one analysis when we changed the recovery definition halfway through the trial from the original protocol it was 80% versus 40%.

Under the second anaylsis with the original protocol it was 2% versus 1%.

As you can see this is twice as much in both analysis. So that is the same fing.

We do prefer the first analysis cos it is more inline wif what other reiki and homeopathy people what did study the same things did say.

All objective measures was dropped and our analysis is the best cos the other analysis did not have access to all the data so they don't know what we do know.

Our trial is definitive cos after we changed the recovery definitions halfway through the trial and magically matched the results of other studies that were not definitive and gave us the justification to run this trial costing £5 millon.

This trial was really bootiful!!
 
Last edited:
Sharpe/Chalder/Goldsmith made no real arguments in their paper (other than the point they got wrong about APT being excluded from the analyses) so this feels more like a flogging than a debate. It's pretty depressing how little this seems to matter.

Barry said:
I don't think they can, unless our whole scientific establishment is rotten to the core ... which I cannot imagine to be the case.
Click to expand...

Things have to be pretty rotten to have gotten to this point imo. UK science seems to really encourage and reward people who just suck up to authority.
 
large donner said:
D2mF9jfXgAA-5eG

Twice as many people are cured of cancer using reiki as opposed to homeopathy.

Under one analysis when we changed the recovery definition halfway through the trial from the original protocol it was 80% versus 40%.

Under the second anaylsis with the original protocol it was 2% versus 1%.

As you can see this is twice as much in both analysis.

We do prefer the first analysis cos it is more inline wif what other reiki and homeopathy people what did study the same things did say.

All objective measures was dropped and our analysis is the best cos the other analysis did not have access to all the data so they don't know what we do know.

Our trial is definitive cos after we changed the recovery definitions halfway through the trial and magically matched the results of other studies that were not definitive and gave us the justification to run this trial costing £5 millon.

This trial was really bootiful!!
Click to expand...

@large donner - Have you considered taking up the 'patient involvement' opportunity to 'co-produce' the Plain English summaries for NIHR and MRC research projects? :nerd::D
 
Simbindi said:
@large donner - Have you considered taking up the 'patient involvement' opportunity to 'co-produce' the Plain English summaries for NIHR and MRC research projects? :nerd::D
Click to expand...

That's an interesting idea. I don't think its very difficult to summarise an opponent claiming to be scientific when in actual fact they operate via a parody of themselves and seem to have invented a new meme of "uncommon sense".
 
I must admit when I read about it that I briefly considered joining, and learning to drive, twitter, just so I could be blocked by him lol

But something else happened, or I forgot, or maybe I did so and I've forgotten about it.

Does anyone know? :rofl:
 
EzzieD said:
I suspect that will only happen when pigs learn to fly, hee hee. :D
Click to expand...
Cheshire said:
Click to expand...

He just wants to make sure people viewing his timeline don't see it.

Which is very telling. He knows the facts are against him and still continues to peddle his nonsense. They all know they're harming us and put their career ahead of the lives of millions. Reckless and irresponsible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom