QMUL spent £250,000 in legal fees to prevent the release of the PACE trial data

John Peters made an FOI request to QMUL to discover exactly how much the hearing had cost and has now received a reply.

And the amount is just unbelievable...

I let you see by yourself
https://johnthejack.com/2016/06/29/using-public-money-to-keep-publicly-funded-data-from-the-public/

 

Seriously, WTF!?!

 

Seriously, what does the data actually show? Something that's more costly than £250k apparently.

 

Approximately a quarter of a million pounds in legal expenses

 

I suppose they value their own careers at a higher rate than that, and the data makes the future of those careers uncertain.

 

TBH, @Cheshire, I think that £250,000 should go in the subject line! The more who see it, the better.

I wonder it really was taxpayers' money? Presumably it's also possible that industry sources paid.

 

Oh c'mon, you can't put a price on the good reputation of White, Chalder and all now can you??

 

Makes for a nice retractionwatch story? 250k GBP wasted to avoid sharing anonymous data?

 

Why would industry pay when they can get the public to pay for it?

 

The university presumably has to justify its spending and I'd be horrified if it had actually used taxpayers' money for this. I'd have thought it would have been against its own regulations and/or the advice of its own trustees.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that for now it's an assumption that this was taxpayers' money rather than an established fact (although I can't concentrate well enough at the moment to read John the Jack's blog properly).

 

If they had a case the arguments would speak for themselves and wouldn't require this kind of spending (much of it presumably to lawyers). Further proof that this is a power game, nothing to do with science or the public interest.

 

Is the grammar correct?

 

Tsk, you Europeans, no wonder we decided to leave....

Seriously, yes, it's fine.

 

A quarter of a million pounds?!? It's breath-taking. That's the equivalent yearly pay of about 12 junior researchers. I think it raises a huge question-mark over the leaders of an institution that is prepared to spend this much to hide public data. I wonder if there is a regulatory body who oversees accounting, spending and leadership at English universities? What are the university's trustees doing about this?

 

I thought correct grammar was mainly an English obsession?!?

 

UK universities receive private and public financing but they are considered public bodies.

John the Jack says that the legal fees were paid by QMUL...

 

Well, presumably their justification is the reputation of both QMUL and the individuals involved. And if the legal bills were paid by industry sources would the details then be accessible under a FOI request?

Just a thought, wasn't one of the arguments against release of the data that it would be too costly to process the data to make it "release-able"??

 

God, you don't know the intricacies of French grammar...

 

Would they pay VAT on this if it was a business cost? I don't know how that would work tbh.

 

This is why your mother told you to become a lawyer.