Here's the latest chapter in the Crawley Chronicles--my response to the Health Research Authority about Bristol's argument that the dog ate the missing corrections and all the correspondence.
That is, Bristol has claimed that Professor Crawley, its methodologically, ethically and factually challenged grant magnet, sent off the appeals for corrections as instructed--only to have journals decline or overlook them for unstated reasons. Unfortunately, Bristol was unable to produce any correspondence that would support these claims. Oops!!
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Dear XXXX—
I want to express my thanks for the HRA’s efforts to get to the bottom of this perplexing situation and rectify it. Frankly, I am troubled by what appears to be Bristol’s attempt to deflect any responsibility for these irregularities. According to Bristol, it is all the fault of the high-profile journals in which Professor Crawley's work appeared. The implication is that these journals chose not to inform readers about important information regarding ethical aspects of the research they published. This explanation certainly strains credulity, and not just because the university is unable to provide any evidence of correspondence that would support these questionable claims.
Here are a few of the other reasons why it is hard to accept Bristol’s assertions at face value.
*Journals can certainly be incompetent, so perhaps, in some cases, the request to correct an ethics statement might be overlooked or otherwise fall through the cracks. But in seven out of eleven cases? While that is theoretically possible, it seems doubtful to me, especially absent any documentation of the veracity of Bristol’s statements.
*It is true, as you noted, that journals make their own decisions about corrections. But would serious journals really refuse to fix ethics statements when asked by the principal investigator on the basis of an authoritative report from the HRA and the investigator’s own academic institution? Again, that is theoretically possible, but I find it hard to fathom. If this is so, then the system for monitoring research ethics in the UK is far more broken than I have assumed.
*Three of the eleven papers were published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, a BMJ journal. One of these papers has been corrected; two have not. Presumably Professor Crawley would have informed the journal of all three required corrections at the same time. In that case, the argument being advanced is that Archives decided to correct only one paper and rejected corrections for the other two. Does this make sense to the HRA?
*If a journal ignored or rejected a request for a necessary correction, an investigator with a functioning ethical compass and an iota of integrity would have sought an intervention from the authorities that requested the change in the first place—in this case, the HRA and Bristol. Based on Bristol’s account, Professor Crawley took no such action but simply sent off her requests and then let the matter drop. If that’s what happened, her failure to pursue this matter to the fullest extent speaks volumes. It would seem she is indifferent as to whether or not readers are offered accurate information about her research.
This mess has harmed not only Professor Crawley’s reputation but Bristol’s and the HRA’s as well. Now Bristol has compounded the damage by throwing the journals under the bus and blaming them for everything.
I am glad the HRA has insisted that, going forward, Bristol should try to push through these corrections and obtain responses from any journals that refuse. Beyond fixing the problem, however, I believe further investigation into how this happened in the first place is warranted. Perhaps the HRA should invest the time to contact the journals, inform them of Bristol’s accusations of negligence and/or ineptitude, and seek their side of the matter.
Please keep me informed about further developments.
Best--David
David Tuller, DrPH
Senior Fellow in Public Health and Journalism
Center for Global Public Health
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
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In the meantime, there are five days left in Berkeley's October crowdfunding for my project:
https://www.facebook.com/david.tuller.1#
That is, Bristol has claimed that Professor Crawley, its methodologically, ethically and factually challenged grant magnet, sent off the appeals for corrections as instructed--only to have journals decline or overlook them for unstated reasons. Unfortunately, Bristol was unable to produce any correspondence that would support these claims. Oops!!
**********
Dear XXXX—
I want to express my thanks for the HRA’s efforts to get to the bottom of this perplexing situation and rectify it. Frankly, I am troubled by what appears to be Bristol’s attempt to deflect any responsibility for these irregularities. According to Bristol, it is all the fault of the high-profile journals in which Professor Crawley's work appeared. The implication is that these journals chose not to inform readers about important information regarding ethical aspects of the research they published. This explanation certainly strains credulity, and not just because the university is unable to provide any evidence of correspondence that would support these questionable claims.
Here are a few of the other reasons why it is hard to accept Bristol’s assertions at face value.
*Journals can certainly be incompetent, so perhaps, in some cases, the request to correct an ethics statement might be overlooked or otherwise fall through the cracks. But in seven out of eleven cases? While that is theoretically possible, it seems doubtful to me, especially absent any documentation of the veracity of Bristol’s statements.
*It is true, as you noted, that journals make their own decisions about corrections. But would serious journals really refuse to fix ethics statements when asked by the principal investigator on the basis of an authoritative report from the HRA and the investigator’s own academic institution? Again, that is theoretically possible, but I find it hard to fathom. If this is so, then the system for monitoring research ethics in the UK is far more broken than I have assumed.
*Three of the eleven papers were published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, a BMJ journal. One of these papers has been corrected; two have not. Presumably Professor Crawley would have informed the journal of all three required corrections at the same time. In that case, the argument being advanced is that Archives decided to correct only one paper and rejected corrections for the other two. Does this make sense to the HRA?
*If a journal ignored or rejected a request for a necessary correction, an investigator with a functioning ethical compass and an iota of integrity would have sought an intervention from the authorities that requested the change in the first place—in this case, the HRA and Bristol. Based on Bristol’s account, Professor Crawley took no such action but simply sent off her requests and then let the matter drop. If that’s what happened, her failure to pursue this matter to the fullest extent speaks volumes. It would seem she is indifferent as to whether or not readers are offered accurate information about her research.
This mess has harmed not only Professor Crawley’s reputation but Bristol’s and the HRA’s as well. Now Bristol has compounded the damage by throwing the journals under the bus and blaming them for everything.
I am glad the HRA has insisted that, going forward, Bristol should try to push through these corrections and obtain responses from any journals that refuse. Beyond fixing the problem, however, I believe further investigation into how this happened in the first place is warranted. Perhaps the HRA should invest the time to contact the journals, inform them of Bristol’s accusations of negligence and/or ineptitude, and seek their side of the matter.
Please keep me informed about further developments.
Best--David
David Tuller, DrPH
Senior Fellow in Public Health and Journalism
Center for Global Public Health
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
**********
In the meantime, there are five days left in Berkeley's October crowdfunding for my project:
https://www.facebook.com/david.tuller.1#
