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https://jcoynester.wordpress.com/20...n-on-handing-over-the-plos-one-data-to-coyne/
Simon Wessely: Why PACE investigators aren’t keen on handing over the PLOS One data to Coyne
December 20, 2016James C Coyne clinical trials, conflict of interest, data sharing, Freedom of Information, PACE, PLOS One, post-publication peer review, psychotherapy, questionable publication practices, trial registration Anna Wood, journalism, Psychological Medicien, Robim Murray, Simon Wessely
In what has become his characteristic style, Simon Wessely smears me with innuendo, suggesting I might try to alter the PLOS One PACE data and use the altered data to damage the careers of the investigators. He further argues that any release of the data could hurt the careers of the investigators and he understands their resistance. I say “Nonsense! I should be provided with the data as the investigators promised in publishing in PLOS One.”
Simon Wessely discreetly stays in the shadows, but he’s been very much involved in the struggle over the PACE trial, including whether the data will be released to me. I first learned from Wessely, not PLOS One, that my asking for data promised as a condition for publishing in the journal had somehow been turned into a Freedom of Information Act request.
But before that, Simon and I were in regular contact by direct messages on Twitter. I gave a talk at King’s College on biomarkers in June 2015. Simon and I later discussed getting a drink together because he was not able to be there. Simon established that he’s a wine guy, not one for scotch or beer.
When I first started tweeting about the PACE study months later, Simon contacted me, asking me not to comment on this study until I had spent months familiarizing myself with it. When that strategy didn’t work, he asked me to tone down my criticism of the PACE study. He even suggested that the PACE investigators would meet me in a public debate that Andre Tomlin of Mental Elf was trying to set up. But Andre later confirmed that the PACE investigators had already indicated there was no way that they would debate me.
Simon has continued to work behind the scenes, conveying vague threats to early investigators who criticize PACE in print. Simon’s nudges have been followed up by further threats from the PACE investigators to the universities of these early investigators.
Journalists have also been contacted by Simon who discouraged them in emails marked confidential from commenting on PACE. Tacky and manipulative because Simon’s emails came out of the blue, and Simon was suggesting that the journalists should not tell anyone about them.
Journal editors have been contacted by PACE investigators with efforts to suppress publication of criticism.
Critics have asked Psychological Medicine to publish a letter to the editor reporting the switched scoring of PACE outcomes that had substantially inflated the recovery rates reported in that journal in 2013. The editor, Robin Murray – a close colleague of Simon’s at King’s College, London – rejected the possibility of any letter based only on re-analyses. Rather, any correction would have to be based on an independent replication of the £5 million study in another sample.
Something is rotten in the UK, not just the State of Denmark.
