If it's not about withdrawal the choice of words are rather misleading - we the undersigned demand that the authors withdraw the paper with immediate effect
Hi wdb, what ever the petition says, whatever we demand, the Lancet will never ever withdraw on our say so, nor the authors. They will spin it as crazy patients. They are NOT the target audience. Policymakers who sit on the fence, politicians who are not aware of controversy, scientists who have not really looked at the issue - they are the targets. Plus of course other patients. No scientific journal will ever bow to patient pressure this way. Nor will scientists, nor certain psychiatrists. Making a demand for withdrawal does not mean we believe they ever will. Its about sending a signal that we cannot except shoddy science, and they are never going to succeed, no matter what.
In my advocacy I have occasionally made over the top demands. I never expect the agencies to comply, ever. I do hope for two things. The first is that they get a message, PUBLICLY. They can never ever say they were not informed. They are also publicly forced to either ignore us or respond negatively. This is then in the public domain. This leads me to the second point: later on we can use this as evidence of denial, evidence of corruption, evidence of incompetence, or whatever, depending on how they respond. Such a petition is not about winning the battle, its about setting up conditions to win the war.
For example, I sent an XMRV message last year to every health and shadow health minister in Australia. They are informed. Failure to keep up or act is therefore incompetence as the science changes - this is about long term change, long term politics, not short term gains.
Bye
Alex
