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Coyne - What it takes for Queen Mary to declare a request for scientific data “vexatious”

Large Donner

Senior Member
Messages
866
After some reflection, I think they will prefer the retraction over the release of the data. If they release the data, and it shows what I think it will show, then the PACE house of cards and whole treatment approach is threatened. In comparison, a retraction is the lesser evil.

But it's hard to predict their behaviour when so many factors are unknown.

The good news is that regardless of the outcome, we make some progress. Refusal to publish data will motivate critics and strengthen their position in the legal process.

I cannot see a retraction happening on this basis I am afraid. If no one has decided to retract up to now why would they do so until forced to release the data.

Even then, after such data is released and then if it proves to be deliberately misleading and then after a massive continued "they don't understand the data" campaign nonsense. One has to remember they control the whole narrative, the truth is irrelevant to them.

I think they will be much more calculated. There is always the possibility that the Lancet could wake up from their coma on the PACE trial and because of a refusal to release the data on top of all the other claims and flaws that the Lancet themselves could push for a retraction. But then again pigs might fly.

Also the data would still be publicly owned information even after a retraction and its clear that we wouldn't stop asking for that data after any possible retraction if the study investigators tried to go the retraction route to bury the data in an abyss. Infact after a retraction they would have less defense for continuing to withhold the data on claims that its just a campaign to discredit the investigators etc etc or "we are continuing to make calculation's and do follow up studies".

I personally think they are now in a position where they think the best thing to do is keep going, denying, stalling, withholding. In my opinon this is a stalling process whilst they try to pull favours behind the scenes and they may even go as far as trying to push for secret files etc. One only has to be aware what happened in the Judaical hearing on the NICE guidlines.

They will try everything they can and use every piece of influence they can to not release the data or get retracted. And the problem is they have friends in high places both in government which, means judges, politicians, the media, medical journals etc, and also in the enormously powerful corporate industries which means.....ermmmm....judges, politicians, the media, medical journals etc.

They have people who are knighted by the crown which people just don't realise are a private corporation who apply rules to other people but not to themselves just as a work placed organisation does with its own policies. These are rules and not laws so when they want to break them themselves they know they are not prosecutable on many grounds of technicality. Most of the rest of us dont realsie this, that's why we abide by the rules as well as the fact that we have a conscience.

When the shit hits the fan for these kind of people and it looks like they are going to get the "wrong judge", that's when they pull in their own people and dirty influences. They have to maintain an illusion of authority and expertise that's why they pretend to play by the same rules as us yet fool the masses into thinking they have a superior understanding and are deserving of their positions.

What comes out of the City of London Corporation is purely a private entity and a legal fiction. Its a city within a city and its gives itself diplomatic immunity to pull illusions on the rest of us. Propaganda does not have an imaginary border it cannot cross once on the outskirts of Russia or China or all of those countries we laugh at like North Korea when we cannot believe the stuff people are fed and believe. Propaganda is a centuries old corporation it knows no borders no sovereignty, and it has no nationality nor does it desire one. It requires us to be the subjects bound to sovereignty and itself to be international.

Propaganda has many faces, it comes in the name of fear and oppression and it hides in the name of freedom like a cowardly conman in our midst, the later being easier to hide as its meme is the very definition of propaganda.

It's all one big illusion, like George Carlin says, "Its one big club and you ain't in it."
 
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OverTheHills

Senior Member
Messages
465
Location
New Zealand
Since PLOS insist as a condition of publication that data is made available, then the decision to retract that particular paper or not retract get taken out of White & Co's hands if they continue to withold our data. Given my memory though that may just be wishful thinking..

OOps cross posting. AB said it better:sleep:
 

Large Donner

Senior Member
Messages
866
The paper in question has been published in PLOS One. Their data sharing policy punishes refusal to share data with retraction.

Ah I see. So technically they could be snookered on this one. In which case how did it get published in the first place.

Is PLOS one a UK journal?
 
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JamBob

Senior Member
Messages
191
Interesting...

I think that Coyne sees some of the issues more clearly than the patient community, especially those concerning broader medical politics. But as he goes forth into this, it wouldn't surprise me if he continued to find that his standard tactics don't work here, that there is a far broader coalition squatting on this issue than is usual. Indeed he already is.

The thing is, normally when there is some "bad science" afoot, it gets broadcast by loads of skeptics on social media, but in this situation, all the skeptics are completely brainwashed by the SMC and Sense about Science.

Plus we have influential social media doctors like Pemberton slating us in the media, and many of the skeptics are super pally with Simon W on twitter.

If Ben Goldacre retweeted Coyne's blogs to his many followers, we'd have a massive crowd on our side calling for QMUL to publish, but Ben Goldacre is never going to criticise the head of his Royal College is he?

The whole affair just highlights how corrupt medicine can be with its hierarchies, establishment, politics, big egos and misappropriation of science to promote vested interests.
 

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
Is it right the PLOS data sharing policy was implemented in 2014 ? So would it still apply to a 2012 paper ?
This is the appropriate editorial from 2014:
There is nothing new in the policy about what types and forms of data should be shared. As we said in December, “PLOS journals have requested data be available since their inception, but we believe that providing more specific instructions for authors regarding appropriate data deposition options, and providing more information in the published article as to how to access data, is important for readers and users of the research we publish.” As we have further clarified, “the Data Policy states the ‘minimal dataset’ consists “of the dataset used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript with related metadata and methods, and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. This does not mean that authors must submit all data collected as part of the research, but that they must provide the data that are relevant to the specific analysis presented in the paper.” The ‘minimal dataset’ does not mean, for example, all data collected in the course of research, or all raw image files, or early iterations of a simulation or model before the final model was developed. We continue to request that the authors provide the “data underlying the findings described in their manuscript”. Precisely what form those data take will depend on the norms of the field and the requests of reviewers and editors, but the type and format of data being requested will continue to be the type and format PLOS has always required.
http://blogs.plos.org/everyone/2014/02/24/plos-new-data-policy-public-access-data-2/

This seems to suggest that it's a slight variation of an earlier policy rather than a completely new approach. Also, James Coyne is an editor at PLOS, so I'd expect him to be up on all this already.
 

jimells

Senior Member
Messages
2,009
Location
northern Maine
They will try everything they can and use every piece of influence they can to not release the data or get retracted. And the problem is they have friends in high places both in government which, means judges, politicians, the media, medical journals etc, and also in the enormously powerful corporate industries which means.....ermmmm....judges, politicians, the media, medical journals etc.

In the US, the NIH cut them loose when it announced the new intramural biomedical research and the intent to expand extramural funding. It will be interesting to see how much longer the insurance company handlers will support the psychobabblers.
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Tweets from James Coyne just a few minutes ago:

PEQLECSa_normal.jpg
James C.Coyne (@CoyneoftheRealm)
2015-12-02, 4:02 PM
Tick, tick. Time is running out. I will be quite intolerant if the vexatious PACE investigators don't produce data by deadline for my FOI

PEQLECSa_normal.jpg
James C.Coyne (@CoyneoftheRealm)
2015-12-02, 4:15 PM
Deadline is within 20 days of November 13. PACE investigators should not further annoy me. twitter.com/brianvastag/st…


:woot::eek::rolleyes::nervous::whistle::rofl::rolleyes:
 

Large Donner

Senior Member
Messages
866
There is nothing new in the policy about what types and forms of data should be shared. As we said in December, “PLOS journals have requested data be available since their inception, but we believe that providing more specific instructions for authors regarding appropriate data deposition options, and providing more information in the published article as to how to access data, is important for readers and users of the research we publish.” As we have further clarified, “the Data Policy states the ‘minimal dataset’ consists “of the dataset used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript with related metadata and methods, and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. This does not mean that authors must submit all data collected as part of the research, but that they must provide the data that are relevant to the specific analysis presented in the paper.” The ‘minimal dataset’ does not mean, for example, all data collected in the course of research, or all raw image files, or early iterations of a simulation or model before the final model was developed. We continue to request that the authors provide the “data underlying the findings described in their manuscript”. Precisely what form those data take will depend on the norms of the field and the requests of reviewers and editors, but the type and format of data being requested will continue to be the type and format PLOS has always required.

I don't see anything in that statement relating to retraction on grounds of withholding data. What doesn't fill me with confidence is the nature of the language around "minimal dataset" that doesn't appear to have excluded the paper from initial publication.

So we are now after the event. How did the paper get published in the first place?
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
I like the way JC is using their own self-defined words on them. I think it's past time for us to start calling them vexatious BPS militants or something similar. They have been more militant about their position than we have been about ours. I'd say we are certainly justified in calling them hostile since we have plenty of publicly available hostile comments from those supporting the BPS position.