Dr David Tuller: My Follow-Up Follow-Up With Dr Segal about LP Study Citation

[Countrygirl]

http://www.virology.ws/2019/06/05/t...ELpagOFoCMkCnwiXInCn2Y_6S2LU3VrB8p5yaH9vj1-bA

Trial By Error: My Follow-Up Follow-Up with Dr Segal about LP Study Citation

5 JUNE 2019
By David Tuller, DrPH

Fans of Bristol University’s team of pediatric ME/CFS researchers could be forgiven if they hoped a recent citation of one of the group’s most high-profile studies would help bolster its wobbling reputation. Yet the suggestion that the Lightning Process is an “effective” treatment for kids–highlighted in the abstract of a pediatric review of “CFS/ME”–has focused renewed attention on the illegitimacy of both the claim and the study on which it is based.

Archives of Disease in Childhood published the study online in September, 2017. In December, 2017, I documented on Virology Blog that the investigators violated multiple ethical and methodological principles in the trial itself and the subsequent paper. Specifically, among other concerns, they recruited more than half the participants before trial registration, swapped primary and secondary outcomes based on the early results, and then failed to disclose these irregularities in the published report. This cannot be considered proper science. The study should never have been published. It should now be retracted and the situation should be reviewed as a possible case of research misconduct. The reported findings, such as they are, should not be used as the basis for clinical guidelines or public policy