Trial By Error: Professor Sharpe’s Retraction Requests

@Snowdrop, thank you for your suggestion to look at what happened early on with approval.

I have questions about the approval process. What is the scope of an ethics committee? I do know this to some extent, but how far does the authority for this committee go? Was the ethics committee again consulted re downgrading outcome goals? I seem to recall some discussion of this. One would assume any major changes would need to be authorized by an ethics committee.

 

Well there is the man with the orange hair, but within medical science, no. What is most remarkable here is the transparent misrepresentation of the RHA report.

 

Yes but they would be considered "substantial amendments" rather than new protocols, and can therefore be approved by a two-person sub-committee of the REC. So it's not a high bar.

 

@dave30th

Thank you for your explanation.

How do ehtics committees measure or judge whether an amendment is substantial or minor? Is this done by using some formula (objective measures), or just opinion (subjective measures)? How far can researchers stretch before ethics committees say whoa? Seems like a "how
long is a piece of string question." I would guess it varies.

 

Can we check the timeline on this?

Also do we know if HRA sought comment from the PIs of PACE or the SMC etc, during their investigation, were such exchanges or meetings documented if they happened and minutes kept etc?

Or did the SMC or the PIs of PACE initiate such an exchange during the process.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1097576826141057025

 

The girls seem to have got into gear.
No stopping them now I am afraid.

 

MS does seem to have a special talent. Bad case of foot 'n mouth.

 

I can't even wrap my head around the twisted logic here...
https://twitter.com/user/status/1097626513565016065


Requesting data for independent analysis, something which the PACE authors claim to provide, is proof of bias? How does anyone think Sharpe is a credible person when he keeps saying stupid things like that and registering ridiculous complaints?

 

Lets not forget the Lancet, the BMJ, the HRA, Cochrane, the Times and other newspapers and many other influential groups have sided with Sharpe and the PACE team. Even the state has given Wessely a knighthood and other groups have given out faux awards too.

Ill stick my neck out here and say that the Bristol investigation of Crawley will give her a clean bill of health or at least whatever comes out of it will be a lame enough response for her to "officially" claim one.

We are at a real crucial point now whereby just when it seems the game is up all of those above groups manage to do about turns, pass the buck, go silent, obfuscate particularly in the case of Cochrane and the BMJ with their pathetic excuses.

I think we are fooling ourselves a bit if we think that the HRA wasn't a "win" of any kind for Sharpe et al. It was!

With Fiona Godlees responses to Tuller particularly the "issues beyond my editorial control as I am sure you will understand", the HRA report where Sharpe seemed to be standing next to the press as it was printed, Toveys pathetic responses on behalf of Cochrane its fairly obvious there is some major dynamic going on behind the scenes.

Just because the truth is on our side it doesn't mean policy will shift or that the powers that control it will ever admit to it. If anyone thinks they cant just kick this into the long grass for decades more, they can!! They have done such things before.

Its exactly what they are trying to do now and as they are in control they know we can only go round and round this pathetic circle where we have to go to them to appeal or complain. If they don't budge it doesn't matter how may universities or agencies or academics around the world can see through them.

There is an enormous amount at stake here and it goes right to the top of the British establishment regardless of who is currently in power or not and regardless of whether any individual in power now or in the past deliberately had anything to do with the whole fiasco.

There are also major ramifications at play for many flag ship economic and health policies for decades to come.

 

Well said @large donner

 

Larun lodged a complaint against Caroline Struthers for sharing an article critical of PACE.

Damn, this vexatious gang is really big on the whole harassment thing. This seems like projection once again.

Can we get a full tally of who they tried to fire or lodge complaints against? It's really time to have this in one place. Is there a thread for this?

I'm joking above about the "whole harassment thing" but this is actually serious stuff they're trying to do, completely unprofessional and it definitely meets most people's definition of harassment and unethical behavior. And they dare speak of people trying to silence good scientists just because we "don't like" their work. This mutual admiration society projects more than an IMAX theater.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1097531710366011393

 

Reality has a way of asserting itself. Right now the pressure is building but the more resistance they put into it, the more explosive the backlash will be. There is a lot hanging and it's largely political will that keeps the levee from breaking but it will and it will be spectacular. It's unknown when but pressure will only build up over time, it will never relent.

The tactics that allowed this mad project to go along worked before the Internet was ubiquitous, but is not possible anymore. There isn't the option of closed-door meetings that only leave notes in storage. Now we're adding so much public record all the time, a record that cannot be removed (despite Sharpe's pathetic attempts). The Internet doesn't forget. It moves slowly but it's unstoppable.

 

How come we seem to be living more and more in a post truth society all around the world then?

 

Pressure does not relent if people keep pushing. In general news people move on to the next item, and the next, and usually do not stop to do something such as advocacy or activism. We are living in a world of constantly changing news, updated all day, and its only the people who stay on task who keep issues alive. Unless of course a particular issue in the news keeps unfolding over time, with story after new story.

 

Yes but we are also living in a world where the government is now telling us they will decide what "fake news" is, that they will soon be regulating it and on top of that coming down on people who are decided by them to be the purveyors of fake news. At the same time we are being told that the internet needs more regulation and that the government are the people best placed to do it.

So "fake information" will not be something we can decide on for ourselves it will be something that we never get to see as the authorities will have previously deemed it worthy of censorship, clamp down and silencing.

Who will get to decide whether the David Tullers of this world, for example, are purveyors of fake news and what punishments should be dished out to them?

You and me?

 

I'm struggling to keep up with all the recent reading!

Interesting Sharpe seemed to have these e-mails ready to go. Again, he seems to be unable to engage with the details of the critiques made of his work.

I got the impression that the HRA's letter was cynically written to try to help the PACE researchers use it to avoid debate, despite it not engaging with the key criticisms of this research. I find it difficult to believe Montgomery thought that he would be encouraging the continuation of robust debate about PACE. Surely he knew that PACE/BMJ/etc would use it in exactly the way that they have, and there are lines in there that seem designed to enable them to be quoted out of context. To me, it reads like a document intended to be as politically harmful to criticism of PACE as possible while maintaining plausible deniability.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, and I could well be wrong, but that was the impression I got from it.

 

Were it up to me, they'd write back and tell him that his requests are vexatious.