Trial By Error: My Questions for the Science Media Centre
18 DECEMBER 2017
By David Tuller, DrPH
On September 20, 2017, a BMJ Publishing Group journal,
Archives of Disease in Childhood published
the SMILE trial. This trial investigated
an intervention called the Lightning Process as a treatment for kids with CFS/ME (as the study called the disease). The lead investigator was Professor Esther Crawley, the University of Bristol pediatrician and a well-known researcher in the field. The trial’s full title:
“Clinical and cost-effectiveness of the Lightning Process in addition to specialist medical care for paediatric chronic fatigue syndrome: randomised controlled trial.”
Not surprisingly, the
Science Media Centre played a key role in presenting the SMILE trial findings to the news media, trotting out cautiously supportive statements from experts like
Professor Dorothy Bishop, the well-known Oxford University developmental neuropsychologist. The folks at the SMC certainly viewed the trial quite differently than I did, not to mention the many patients, advocates, scientists and others who have criticized it. If the SMILE trial comes under greater scrutiny, as I suspect it might, the SMC could find itself under pressure to answer some tough questions.
