Lerner is a pleasant surprise. Only one psychiatrist? That is a plus. I have only just started looking at this though, I may say more later.
It would be surprising were there not one psychiatrist. I think this is as good as we can expect.
Dr. Cynthia D. Mulrow
American College of Physicians
Cynthia Mulrow, M.D., MSc, is senior deputy editor of annals of internal medicine and adjunct professor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She has been program director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars Program and director of the San Antonio Cochrane Collaboration Center and the San Antonio Evidence-based Practice Center. She was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation in 1997, served as a member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force 1998-2002, honored as a Master of the ACP in 2005, and elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2008. Cynthia’s academic work focused on systematic reviews, practice guidelines, research methodology and chronic medical conditions. She contributes to groups who set standards for reporting research: PRISMA (systematic reviews and meta-analyses), STROBE (observational studies) and CONSORT (clinical trials).
[
My bolding.]
I think this answers my question about what kind of evidence-based approach is likely to be present. So my focus is now moving to the Cochrane guidelines.
Dr. Betsy Keller
Ithaca College
Betsy Keller, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Exercise & Sport Sciences at Ithaca College in New York. She received her Ph.D. in exercise science from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst.
She is exactly who we need to properly evaluate the 2 day CPET evidence.
Dr. Michael L. Shelanski
Columbia University
Michael Shelanski, M.D., Ph.D., serves as chairman of the department of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University, co-director of the Taub Institute, and director of the Medical Scientist Training Program. He is a member of the American Society for Cell Biology, the American Society for Investigative Pathology, the Association of American Physicians, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Shelanski’s laboratory has been responsible for the identification and purification of several of the major cytoskeletal proteins and has served as a training ground for a number of outstanding scholars of the neurodegenerations. The laboratory is using a combination of cell biological and molecular biological approaches to unravel the pathways of “cell suicide” or apoptosis in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerations, to understand the alterations in gene expression that occur in these diseases, and to dissect the regulation of synaptic responses in them.
Shelanski is a biochemist (or cell biologist or similar) and pathological neurology researcher. For someone independent of ME, fulfilling the 25% rule, he is probably not a bad choice.
Dr. Theodore G. Ganiats, M.D.
University of California, San Diego
Theodore Ganiats, M.D., is the executive director of the UCSD Health Services Research Center. He is also Professor of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. Dr. Ganiats attended the UCSD School of Medicine where he completed both his medical degree and his Family Medicine residency. He is a member of many professional associations, including the Society for Medical Decision Making, Academy Health, the American Public Health Association and the International Society for Quality of Life Research. Dr. Ganiats' research interests involve outcomes research, focusing on quality of life assessment and cost-effectiveness analysis. He has delivered over 100 lectures throughout the US and Europe. In addition, he was a member or chair of over 50 national guideline and quality/performance panels spanning multiple disciplines. He has been published in over 100 peer-reviewed journals, such as Diabetes Care, Medical Care, and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Dr. Ganiats is currently on the editorial boards of the Journal of Family Practice and Family Practice News and is a member of the Institute of Medicine.
Ganiats is a potential Finagle factor. There is no way to even vaguely assess what impact he might have based on a brief bio. He could be exactly what is needed, or exactly what we don't need. We may benefit from deeper analysis in this.
Let me stress again though that the rules of evidence can bias a review far more than the choice of researchers. It depends how much independence they have while still claiming to be evidence-based.
I am a fan of the
principle of evidence-based medicine, but not how its typically done. Practice does not live up to the theory, especially in psychiatry.
I will not comment on the rest for now, some of whom are well known to us, except to say that there seems to be a trend to those interested in cancer and autoimmune, which might lend some extra expertise to interpreting the Rituximab data.