Guardian article — response to PACE follow-up and mention of Tuller

[Antares in NYC]

From Tuller's response today to the "urgent" requests from the PACE investigators:

http://www.virology.ws/2015/10/30/david-tuller-responds-to-the-pace-investigators
(...)
Later in the day, however, the public relations manager for medicine and dentistry from the marketing and communications department of Queen Mary University e-mailed Dr. Racaniello again, with an urgent request to publish the response as soon as possible. The PACE investigators, he said, were receiving “a lot of abuse” on social media as a result of my posts, so they wanted to correct the “misinformation” as soon as possible.

Because I needed a day or two to prepare a careful response to the PACE team’s rebuttal, Dr. Racaniello agreed to post them together on Friday morning.

On Thursday, Dr. Racaniello received yet another appeal from the public relations manager for medicine and dentistry from the marketing and communications department of Queen Mary University. Dissatisfied with the Friday publishing timeline, he again urged expedited publication because “David’s blog posts contain a number of inaccuracies, may cause a considerable amount of reputational damage, and he did not seek comment from any of the study authors before the virology blog was published.”

They are getting "a lot of abuse on social media"? "Reputational damage"? Such delicate flowers, my goodness!

First of all, welcome to the Internet, PACE researchers; it's comprised of about 90% abuse, trolling, and cat videos.
Second, the fear of "reputational damage" should be warranted, because the PACE trial felt like a step short of scientific fraud, causing IMMENSE DAMAGE to thousands of ME/CFS sufferers in the UK and EU countries that believed that tripe.

You did this to yourselves and your precious reputation. Reap what you sow. Hope the PACE trial gets further investigated by the proper authorities.

PS: Just to make it absolutely and perfectly clear: I'm not condoning any kind of abuse online or anything of the sort. I did a quick Twitter and Facebook search to see some examples of the type of "social media abuse" they claim they are getting, and I have to say that their definition seems quite wide. It looks to me that anything short of unquestioned reverence for these eminences hurts their feelings.

Even Tuller himself mentions in his latest article that they denied his FOIA request for the full PACE trial data on the basis that they consider it "vexatious". That's not how "science" works, fellas. Peer review --does it ring a bell?
What do you have to hide that a simple request for documentation based on the very common USA "Freedom of Information Act" is considered "vexatious"?

 

[user9876]

From Tuller's response today to the "urgent" requests from the PACE investigators:


They are getting "a lot of abuse on social media"? "Reputational damage"? Such delicate flowers, my goodness!

There response should cause them reputational damage since there justifications for protocol changes are basically 'we thought it was better'. Anyone reading that should question their competence.

First of all, welcome to the internet, PACE researchers; it's comprised of about 90% abuse, trolling, and cat videos.

Is there a video of a cat dissecting the pace trial ?

 

[TiredSam]

This just showed up on Jessica Elgot's Twitter under her plug for the article:
View attachment 13261
Errr...right. It's the job all the ambitious coppers are after.

Actually, that might be a pretty good post for someone with ME. Short hours, low workload. You could probably do it from in bed. Without a computer. Or a telephone...

I misread that post as

"The MET has a dedicated ME hate-crime unit, which monitors researchers who make similar claims"

And understood it to mean that the MET has their eye on researchers who commit hate-crimes against ME patients. I was just thinking "well that's real progress at last" when I saw that the following comments were negative, so I re-read it. Although I'm disappointed now, it felt pretty good for the couple of seconds that I believed that we were to get some kind of legal protection from these abusive psychoquackers at last. Maybe some day.

 

[Riley]

Whoa. I just read Tuller's response. What a beatdown!

 

[Antares in NYC]

Whoa. I just read Tuller's response. What a beatdown!

It is a thing of beauty.

 

[CFS_for_19_years]

Is there a video of a cat dissecting the pace trial ?

I'm sure someone can come up with a video of a cat trying to cover a huge pile of smelly turds.

It is also a thing of beauty.

I'd crosspost this to the cat thread, but I think it's more appropriate here. Poor kitty can't quite get the hang of it.

 

[SOC]

I'm sure someone can come up with a video of a cat trying to cover a huge pile of smelly turds.

It is also a thing of beauty.

I'd crosspost this to the cat thread, but I think it's more appropriate here. Poor kitty can't quite get the hang of it.

For some reason this video reminded me of the PACE trial authors and their "urgent requests" (aka obnoxious demands) that Dr Racaniello publish their response. They just can't quite get the hang of managing a proper cover-up, can they? They seem utterly flummoxed that suddenly the world is not accepting their turd as "a thing of beauty".

 

[CFS_for_19_years]

@SOC thanks for making me laugh!