United Kingdom: Science Media Centre (including Fiona Fox)

As the authors of the recent PACE reanalysis paper (BMC Psychology) have pointed out, there is no right of reply to SMC ‘expert reaction’ briefings.

I think there is scope for someone to set up a dedicated website providing authors with a right of reply to SMC opinion that is presented as ‘the final word’.
 
This one is my favourite:
Seeding Doubt
How Self-Appointed Guardians of “Sound Science” Tip the Scales Toward Industry
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15...sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/
AT A TIME when public mistrust of science runs high, and non-experts are hard-pressed to separate fact from industry-sponsored spin, Sense About Science, a charity based in London with an affiliate in New York, presents itself as a trustworthy arbiter. The organization purports to help the misinformed public sift through alarmist claims about public health and the environment by directing journalists, policymakers, and others to vetted sources who can explain the evidence behind debates about controversial products like e-cigarettes and flame retardants.
Click to expand...
 
They produce a handy flier entitled:

Advice for Researchers Experiencing Harassment
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Advice-for-researchers-experiencing-harrassment-2013.pdf

All researchers should expect their work to be scrutinised by the public, policy makers and campaigners. However, some researchers working on high-profile subjects that attract controversy, such as radiation, climate change, animal research or chronic fatigue syndrome/ME, have also found themselves targeted by people who have extreme views about their research.
Click to expand...
 
Barry said:
[My bold]

Erm ... yes it would:
  1. If one group were being prescribed pills that said on the box "these pills are similar to what you have always been taking", whilst another group were taking pills which said on the box "these are the wizzy new treatment we are trialling", then expectation bias will inevitably manifest itself into the self reporting of how people feel about their illness.
  2. Additionally, and very different to and distinct from '1', if the wizzy new treatment is explicitly designed to change how people feel about their illness, then a "treatment induced perception bias" will feed through into the self reporting of how people feel about their illness.
Self reports are all about how people feel about their illness, not how it actually is.

They seem to miss the point about unblinding, as if unblinding inflates everything? Unblinding can both inflate and deflate.
Click to expand...

Of course agree with you 100%, but I think Stone was trying to be canny here and say if unblinded was to have an effect then it should on the APT arm too as also unblinded. Sounds reasonable but many readers won’t know he purposely neglects to mention is those in the APT arm may have been unblinded like CBT and GET but their therapists weren’t handing out manuals praising how effective the treatment is as the manuals did for the CBT and GET arms.
 
anniekim said:
Of course agree with you 100%, but I think Stone was trying to be canny here and say if unblinded was to have an effect then it should on the APT arm too as also unblinded. Sounds reasonable but many readers won’t know he purposely neglects to mention is those in the APT arm may have been unblinded like CBT and GET but their therapists weren’t handing out manuals praising how effective the treatment is as the manuals did for the CBT and GET arms.
Click to expand...
Yes but if a treatment is unblinded, then depending on the patient perception to that treatment, the result could be to inflate the effect, deflate the effect, or be in between and have no effect. If people believed the treatment they were getting in the APT arm was "same as usual", then it's highly possible the "unblinding effect" was simply for there to be no significant effect due to unblinding. i.e. The effect was neutral, which in fact is what you would expect, so to me it supports what the reanalysis claims.
 
Thanks @Barry. Yes, as the three arms were unblinded the effect is neutral. By Stone not mentioning only two of the three unblinded arms were given positive feedback about the treatment introducing bias to these over above the APT and SMC arms Stone is misleading the reader. He is bringing in a straw man by suggesting the reanalysis paper claims it was the unblinded nature of the trials that makes the results uncertain. Their actual claim was by unblinding the trial but only giving positive information about two of the treatment arms, CBT and GET, bias was introduced and could explain why CBT and GET got slightly higher scores on self measures testing.
 
Last edited:
Barry said:
View attachment 2336

Is that right? Did SW actually found the SMC?
Click to expand...

According to http://powerbase.info/index.php/Science_Media_Centre the SMC was founded in April 2002 and SW was one of the original members of the Scientific Advisory Board.

I will also paste the above link onto Barry’s thread below, for any further discussion.

Barry said:
I've started a thread here ...

https://www.s4me.info/threads/issue...ce-media-centre-smc-not-just-me-related.3159/

... for collating issues (ME or other) people discover relating to the SMC.
Click to expand...
 
It's shocking. Likening sick people who want to get better to climate change deniers and animal rights activists. It's beyond offensive. If they said the same things about black or LGBT rights campaigners, they'd be rightly lambasted. Why does this go unchallenged just because they're dissing disabled people?

The societal problem with the BPS model (beyond the flaws in science, I mean) is that it's inherently ableist. If you can't heal, it's your own fault. If you're chronically ill, you didn't try hard enough. If you claim benefits, you're playing the sick roll. It's always disabled people who are to blame, and if we speak out about this, we're maligned as militants.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
Robert McMullen@RobertHMcMullen

If any truly independent mainstream scientist is willing to defend the #PACEtrial as "good quality" science, please reply to this tweet and I will donate £100 to a charity of your choice. http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/cfsme-the-illness-and-the-controversy/ …

4:50 PM - Mar 21, 2018

Let me up that to £500. But to qualify, the truly independent mainstream scientist will have to explain to me how an open label study of telling patients to think they are better with a subjective endpoint of patients saying they think they are better qualifies as good quality science.
Click to expand...

 
It's M.E. Linda said:
According to http://powerbase.info/index.php/Science_Media_Centre the SMC was founded in April 2002 and SW was one of the original members of the Scientific Advisory Board.

I will also paste the above link onto Barry’s thread below, for any further discussion.
Click to expand...
Not sure it is valid to infer SW as being a founder member, simply by him being on the Scientific Advisory Board? (But open to being proved wrong).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom