Spanish elites rally in support of data manipulation (Jan 2019) by Leonid Schneider, For Better Science

'Spanish elites rally in support of data manipulation' (Jan 2019) by Leonid Schneider, For Better Science

https://forbetterscience.com/2019/01/30/spanish-elites-rally-in-support-of-data-manipulation/

https://twitter.com/user/status/1090623126373834752

 

I wonder if he'd be interested in our situation?

 

He is. He has written about PACE before, for instance:

PACE trial and other clinical data sharing: patient privacy concerns and parasite paranoia
Since the PACE study came out in 2011, the patients, but also a number of academic scientists, remained unconvinced of the published therapy recommendations and suspected a misinterpretation of data. The authors felt harassed and even threatened by the patients’ incessant demands. The relevant research institutions, the Queen Mary University London and the King’s College London, took the side of their clinicians and refused the release of data, using as argument the allegedly inappropriate nature of such requests and the privacy rights of trial participants.

Does The Lancet care about patients?
Another issue The Lancet should look into is the so-called PACE trial (which I previously reported on), published in 2011 (White et al). This clinical trial dealt with medical efficiency of different therapies for chronic fatigue syndrome/ myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME, well explained in this recent Guardian article). Just as the aforementioned Le Blanc’s Lancet paper, also the PACE trial apparently passed off patients, who were not sufficiently ill to begin with, as recovered to demonstrate the efficiency of exercise therapy. This, if true, is no minor thing, but puts the integrity and validity of the entire study in doubt.

 

This article was a few months before PACE data was released due to the FOI request. Since then "but also a number of academic scientists" has swelled considerably.