What is vexatious and harrassing?

I found this video while pootling about on the interweb -

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

While it is a mash up and not a true representation of overall presentations involved in the video, there is a clear section where Esther Crawley is presenting to the MRC (in 2010) about her trial.

There are lots of things to comment on in the clips included in this video but for this topic I was interested in her inclusion of other science papers in this area and her critique of them - bearing in mind her comments and opinions on vexatious and harassing behaviour when it comes to scientific studies. Some notable things pop out:

• Shows early indications of simpering in presentations - "ooh I wonder how they get those colours on them, they are beautiful"
• Inaccurate statements? - the video layover indicates this but I have not validated these
• Criticises a test that costs $650 - sounds similar to the treatment that is £600/700 - says people can make up their mind about whether it is a conflict of interest, but when there is discussion or questions to her about it she claims she is being harassed

There is also this transcript of what looks to be a similar presentation in the same year to a different group - https://meagenda.wordpress.com/2010...presentation-the-future-of-research-in-cfsme/

During this presentation she "scientifically" explores the XMRV research. She criticises the reported numbers (hmm sounds similar to other papers but it is her doing the criticising). She also shows a knowledge of blinded studies and says that it is unclear from the paper whether it was blinded or not.

My thoughts on this are that her behaviour as a scientific professional is worse than Dr Tuller's (who has not behaved badly at all by the way). She criticises other research in front of her peers and at various events. She doesn't at any stage say that she has contacted them to ask about any of the issues she has picked up on. Dr Tuller however is highly professional in his approach and has always had the courtesy to try and find the answers from the source before reporting issues for discussion.

To me it seems that pot and kettle spring to mind and it's ok to behave one way but when questions start being asked of your own research the gates go up and it's ok to throw accusations of harassment around. I thought it was an interesting comparison so thought I would share ...

 

Personally, I think that videos like this are not a good idea, and it seems that this is the video that Crawley has presented as harassment, claiming that it was in some way fabricated or fake (as if people would not realise it was cut together in a critical manner?) accused her of having an affair with an LP instructor.

It seems that some of the comments from underneath the video have since disappeared, including one which seems to be from Crawley herself which asked for people to ring her. Is it normal for victims to ask for phone calls from those they complain are harassing them? She later presented the number of angry calls she got as evidence of harassment (without explaining that she'd posted her phone number and asked people to call her). After I'd posted about dcrawley0's youtube comment on PR (after the Science Media Centre had already been promoting their harassment stories in the media), it then disappeared from the video.

Formerly from the comments:

I think that this concern is fair enough. Also we've since seen the SMILE group talking about their LP 'coach' being very good.

There's also this document on-line already commenting on this stuff:

http://frownatsmile.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/11-smile-dr-crawley-bmj.pdf