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New James Coyne blog: "Was independent peer review of the PACE trial articles possible?"

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
James Coyne said:
Articles reporting the PACE trial have extraordinary numbers of authors, acknowledgments, and institutional affiliations. A considerable proportion of all persons and institutions involved in researching chronic fatigue and related conditions in the UK have a close connection to PACE.

This raises issues about

  • Obtaining independent peer review of these articles that is not tainted by reviewer conflict of interest.
  • Just what authorship on a PACE trial paper represents and whether granting of authorship conforms to international standards.
  • The security of potential critics contemplating speaking out about whatever bad science they find in the PACE trial articles. The security of potential reviewers who are negative and can be found out. Critics within the UK risk isolation and blacklisting from a large group who have investments in what could be exaggerated estimates of the quality and outcome of PACE trial.
  • Whether grants associated with multimillion pound PACE study could have received the independent peer review that is such a crucial to assuring that proposals selected to be funded are of the highest quality.

And if you don't think much of PACE, remember to sign the new petition to stop harms to patients from PACE and other Oxford studies! :cool:
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Interesting angle to look at it. If I understand it right, Coyne is suggesting that peer review may have been compromised by the large number of people and institutions involved in PACE, which could make it impossible to find independent reviewers from the UK with the needed expertise.

On several occasions I have also had the impression that researchers in the UK conform to some degree with Wessely school ideas. Even the biomedical researchers seem influenced by it, which is bizarre since the core ideas of the Wessely school are incompatible with a biomedical explanation. Are they doing it because of external pressure and expectations?

The other thing is that UK researchers don't seem to criticise each other. I don't remember any UK biomedical researcher that has expressed disapproval or disagreement of PACE. Jonathan Edwards seems to be the exception, but maybe that is because he's retired.
 
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Scarecrow

Revolting Peasant
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1,904
Location
Scotland
I don't remember any UK biomedical researcher that has expressed disapproval or disagreement of PACE.
There was a murky story about Jonathan Kerr failing to get further funding for his genetics work because he had criticised the behavioural research. Who knows what the truth of it was.

Anyway, he disappeared for a while and resurfaced in Columbia.........and I don't mean the University.
 

jimells

Senior Member
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2,009
Location
northern Maine
My impression is that "pal review" is now very common and a prime suspect in the low quality of so much of the published research. And not just in the UK.

I don't remember any UK biomedical researcher that has expressed disapproval or disagreement of PACE. Jonathan Edwards seems to be the exception, but maybe that is because he's retired.

I'm pretty sure our beloved professor has always been a troublemaker. :thumbsup:
 

Aurator

Senior Member
Messages
625
There's a new James Coyne blog, David Tuller is well and truly on the case, 10,000 signature petitions have been mustered, the NIH is promising changes, so how is it I can still picture Messrs. Wessely, White, Sharpe et al. impassively looking on with folded arms saying "So what?" to it all?

They know they still hold the whip in their hands, and that it's going to take a lot more than what they've been hit with so far to wrest it from them.
 
Messages
13,774
I think it's good to highlight how the PACE trial can be used as a valuable case study for problem with British mental health research and practice. Beyond the connections discussed here, the informal social connections that glue together British medical researchers is another worry.

I've seen a few researchers unconnected to CFS directly talking about how they know that the PACE researchers are good and sensible people (so criticism directed at them needs not be paid attention to). When you start looking for connections between different higher-ups it all ends up looking a bit incestuous.

These might not be the most killer points for us PACE obsessives, but they are important, and I think that if we are going to improve CFS research that's probably going to have to be a part of wider improvements. Also, those researchers whose attention we need (those more interested in pursuing truth than glory) may not be concerned about CFS, but they are likely to be concerned about the issues addressed here. Having Coyne use PACE as a valuable example of wider problems in medical research can only be to our benefit.

More critically - I did think that there were a couple of paragraph which could have been cut from this. Overall, thought it was good, and great to have it on PACE. Also - genuinely laughed out loud at the idea of giving other researchers an acknowledgement on your paper in order to avoid them in peer review.
 
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Sasha

Fine, thank you
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17,863
Location
UK
Is this how we want to be talking about the writing of someone who is trying to help us, guys?

[Edit - we crossed, @Esther12! I didn't mean you!]

I actually found it fascinating - it hadn't occurred to me that PACE basically had 38 authors - and some of the names there were worrying to me, in terms of people that I would have hoped were outside of PACE's sphere of influence. And the point that it would have been very hard for PACE to get independent peer review with such a large group of authors and connections involved was well made and convincing, I thought. And the stuff about authorship as currency and the career risks of criticising PACE...very interesting.

Remember, he's said that he's moving into a phase of talking to other scientists now, and I think they're going to eat this stuff up.
 
Messages
13,774
Is it possible to find out who the peer reviewers were? or is it all kept secret?

Lancet seems totally secretive on peer review. Annoying.

Is this how we want to be talking about the writing of someone who is trying to help us, guys?

tbf, I think Coyne can take it, and we don't need to avoid being critical out of gratitude. At the same time, we can forget how happy we'd have been a month or two ago if Coyne ad written a blog using PACE as an example of worrying research.
 

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
Regarding peer reviewers, I would say one of Bleijenberg and Knoop was probably a peer review of the Lancet (2011) paper. They wrote a commentary on it. Coyne (?) mentioned before that people who write commentaries are often peer-reviewers who asked to write a commentary. Not many other people would have seen the paper in advance (the most likely other way they might have seen it would be if the PACE investigators passed the paper over to them which is also a bit incestuous).

Also, in the case of the PACE Trial, the peer review process was fast-tracked, so even less time for people not involved in the peer review process to write about it.

It would be interesting if Bleijenberg/Knoop suggested the normal range data when acting as peer reviewers as they focused a lot on that in the commentary.
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Regarding peer reviewers, I would say one of Bleijenberg and Knoop was probably a peer review of the Lancet (2011) paper.

Does it matter who it was exactly? We know they failed. The reason for this was probably that they were aligned with Wessely school ideology. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of Wessely school believers in psych departments.
 
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Bob

Senior Member
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16,455
Location
England (south coast)
Coyne is writing for a general scientific audience - not just us. His audience is interested in bad academic practice in general, and he is illustrating the subject by using PACE as an example of bad practice in academic publishing. I think it's better that he keeps his wider audience engaged by not only focusing on the nitty gritty of PACE, but to also use it to illustrate general discussions. He's just getting started with PACE - he's got other stuff planned - so let him develop his strategy in his way.

BTW, I agree with Sasha. We should assume that Coyne will read this thread. So keep comments constructive. We don't want him to think we are ungrateful just because we made a throw-away comment thinking it was private.
 
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Messages
2,087
Does it matter who it was exactly? We know they failed. The reason for this was probably that they were aligned with Wessely school ideology. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of Wessely school believers in psych departments.

It matters for accountability.
If everyone was held accountable for their actions and words we wouldn't be in this mess.

We can name and shame in the hope that others will be dissuaded from performing sloppy work.