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Dr. Horton did not himself apologize or even deign to respond. Instead, Audrey Ceschia, the Lancet’s correspondence editor, replied, explaining that the Lancet editorial staff decided, after discussing the matter with the PACE authors, that the letter did not add anything substantially new to the discussion.
Instead, Audrey Ceschia, the Lancet’s correspondence editor, replied, explaining that the Lancet editorial staff decided, after discussing the matter with the PACE authors, that the letter did not add anything substantially new to the discussion
If we had any doubt of how far in bed with the PACE authors the Lancet is this gives us the answer - they are right in the middle, snuggled up tight to each other!It is certainly surprising that The Lancet appears to have given the PACE authors some power to determine what letters appear in the journal itself.
Direct link to the letter in the comments section on the trial itself - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21334061#cm21334061_26677Today, because of the urgency of the issue, we are posting on PubMed Commons the letter that The Lancet rejected. That way readers can judge for themselves whether it adds anything to the current debate.
. I'd say Horton was a nob, but clearly that would be hijacking the agenda and distorting the debate.
In explaining The Lancet’s decision to publish the results, Horton told the interviewer that the paper had undergone “endless rounds of peer review.” Yet the ScienceDirect database version of the article indicated that The Lancet had “fast-tracked” it to publication. According to current Lancet policy, a standard fast-tracked article is published within four weeks of receipt of the manuscript.
Horton has staked his own reputation heavily on PACE and strongly attacked the patient community. He's personally up to his neck in all this.does The Lancet have any conflicts of interest in this story?
Even when 10 of the original 13 authors withdrew their names from the article, Horton still refused to withdraw the study.
All of which makes it all the more important for serious journals, as the Lancet claims to be, to avoid junk science -- not promote it.
This incident leads to one very unsettling but unavoidable conclusion: Even a study in a top-notch, peer-reviewed medical journal may still be scientific garbage.
The probably biggest Lancet scandal now is that of the trachea transplant surgeonPaolo Macchiarini, the recently sacked professor at the Swedish Karolinska Institutet (KI).
The journalist David Tuller, who was investigating the PACE trial controversy from the beginning, commented to me:
“The Lancet has not explained how this piece of nonsense could possibly pass peer review."
I think he just means what he said. i.e. if his theory ever gets debunked, disproven, old, worn and tattered, then someone please give him a wake-up call.
I know what it means. He's sending a message to someone.I think he just means what he said. i.e. if his theory ever gets debunked, disproven, old, worn and tattered, then someone please give him a wake-up call.
We don't have to wonder, we are going to get to watch it all, because the circle of critics is getting wider and wider, and none of them are going away until this is sorted.One wonders quite how far someone like Horton (heavily entitled, slightly deranged) will go before his colleagues start looking at him funny.