Surgeons withdraw support for heart disease advice

From the BBC website. This story contains a lot of familiar elements:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-50715156

If this kind of story becomes a thing, we've got the ultimate example for any journalist who's interested ...

 

It does sound familiar:

 

There was a short film and interview with the journalist on Newsnight last night (9th December) which I presume will be available on BBC iplayer

 

It's on YouTube.

"Once you say you are going to measure something in a clinical trial you are expected to publish it"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vGfJKMbpp8

Deborah Cohen
Deborah is an award winning medically qualified freelance TV, print and radio reporter and editor.

As well as writing and editing, she has reported and co-produced TV and radio documentaries and acted as a consultant to other journalists globally.
https://www.drdeborahcohen.com/contact/

Also ex investigations editor at BMJ latest. According to twitter.
https://twitter.com/deb_cohen?s=09

 

Aseem Malhotra the cardiologist has been pretty vocal on this (and statins) for the past few years. A man who knows how to interpret stats

https://www.bmj.com/bmj/section-pdf/746405?path=/bmj/347/7926/Observations.full.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG-uPLliMis

How do we get him interested in ME?

 

EACTS responds to BBC Newsnight’s investigation on the EXCEL trial

https://www.eacts.org/eacts-responds-to-bbc-newsnights-investigation-on-the-excel-trial/

[found this on MS twitter feed .....]

eta: MS take note
https://twitter.com/user/status/1204196829686108160

 

I’ve written to Dr Deborah Cohen who did the investigation for Newsnight to ask if she is aware of the PACE trial and related issues with the NICE Guideline etc.

 

Oh, are those things bad? Conflicts of interest, heavy bias, paid employment based on promoting those same results, misrepresenting results, boasting of success despite "no difference in outcomes", using invalid definitions? Those are bad now? Generally? Or just in this specific case? Is this a new thing? Or an optional requirement?

Because they sure are dismissed as inconsequential when it comes to us so it's very hard to make sense of what is allowed and how or why requirements become optional for some. Maybe they should have used only subjective outcomes midway during trial while removing all objective outcomes. Everything is permitted when you do that.

Have they tried explaining that they just preferred the results and giving assurances that their deviations did not impact showing positive results despite there being no evidence of those? Or maybe they should have founded a company built on promoting their treatment model during their flagship trial. That usually works out. Well, maybe not generally but it sure does sometimes when nothing else does.

 

* unless you "prefer the results" if you do otherwise, obviously, then just give assurances that it's just a coincidence that the results are much better this way**

** do not attempt without significant political influence to retroactively clear of any issues such as "ethics" and "requirements" or fringe concepts such as "rules"