On September 4th, the Science for ME (S4ME) forum sent an open letter to Cochrane’s editor-in-chief, Karla Soares-Weiser, requesting the “immediate withdrawal or retraction” of “Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome,” a 2019 review. The review over-stated the evidence in favor of exercise therapies and has been widely and appropriately criticized for its seriously flawed methodology. In addition, the S4ME letter requested updates on the long-delayed effort to develop a new review—a process launched in the months before the coronavirus pandemic.
To pursue that process, Cochrane appointed two separate teams: one to write both a protocol for an updated review and the review itself and another to serve as an Independent Advisory Group that would oversee the endeavor. I have blogged about Cochrane multiple times, including this post last March on the exercise review situation and this update on S4ME’s letter. (Although I am a member of the forum, I was not involved in this new Cochrane initiative. But I fully agree that the review is a piece of crap and should be drowned in the bathtub or flushed down the toilet.)
