Trial By Error: A Letter to BMJ Open

[Eagles]

Trial By Error: A Letter to BMJ Open

19 February 2018

By David Tuller, DrPH

http://www.virology.ws/2018/02/19/trial-by-error-a-letter-to-bmj-open/

 

[NelliePledge]

Good to see our top scientists weighing in again against more dodgy research

 

[Sbag]

good start to the week

 

[Luther Blissett]

Professor Racaniello does write a good letter.

As usual, many thanks to everyone involved, however big or small, seen or unseen who worked together to produce the information involved.

 

[Barry]

One of the letter's great strengths - amongst many - is that it tightly focuses on just one issue, but an issue that is absolutely damning and totally inescapable.

 

[Esther12]

Another strong letter. Thanks to everyone involved. Thought I'd add a couple of extra links on the school attendance study for people who might be new to this -

Here's the misleading COPE submission on this: https://publicationethics.org/case/service-evaluation-research-controversial-area-medicine

And Tuller's blog about it: http://www.virology.ws/2018/01/02/trial-by-error-the-school-absence-study-revisited/

re SMILE, it really is clear cut that SMILE does not meet this requirement:

"In accordance with the ICMJE Recommendations, BMJ will not consider reports of clinical trials unless they were registered prospectively before recruitment of any participants. This applies to trials which commenced after 1 July 2005; for older trials retrospective registration will be acceptable, but only if completed before submission of the manuscript to the journal."

I wonder if Crawley lied about this as part of the BMJ submission process? Their trial registration already falsely claims that it was prospectively registered: http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN81456207

 

[Esther12]

Looks like the latest COPE meeting led to no further information, and this new conclusion:

Follow up:
The journal chose not to respond to the blogger and considers the case closed.

Resolution:
Case Closed

https://publicationethics.org/case/service-evaluation-research-controversial-area-medicine

Wow. What impressive follow-up. COPE are awesome at dealing with ethical problems.

Previously:

Resolution:
On-going

https://web.archive.org/web/2018030...ne+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-b

 

[dave30th]

Interesting. I do not think this BMJ Open decision will be the last we hear about this issue.

 

[Sean]

Lofty noble intentions and rules are utterly meaningless if they are not enforced.

Few things will create general cynicism and despair and disengagement more effectively than that situation.

 

[Barry]

Ostriches, heads and sand come to mind. They just don't realise it's their backsides about to get bitten.

 

[Valentijn]

Lofty noble intentions and rules are utterly meaningless if they are not enforced.

COPE never had noble intentions - their structure and rules have been formulated to act as a rubber stamp for the members (journals) and silence the public criticism of those journals when they commit ethical violations.