Hope you don't mind, Ben, but I've brought your comment on MEGA to the MEGA thread.
Edit: Originally I didn't include Ben's full comment - sorry, Ben!
White and Crawley I can't sign anything my name to.
This is a high-tech omics study and they don't have the skills to contribute to its design or interpretation - that's not their area. They may be on the list, but they're in no position to have much, if any, influence.
So my question to myself now is, "Am I going to let the presence of BPS people prevent me from supporting the biggest ME/CFS biomed trial in the world? Am I really going to give them that much power?" And I suspect that my answer is going to be "no".
Ben Howell said:
Same goes for criteria used.
I just tried to listen to George Davey Smith's presentation but couldn't hear it very well and was lying down so couldn't see his slides. He addressed the issue of wide criteria and was arguing for wide criteria but on what sounded like an interesting basis. He's a world-renowned epidemiologist, not someone with a psychiatric agenda, and I'd like to understand his view. I think we need to get away from our assumption that wide criteria must be bad because they have been used badly in the past. Omics and large numbers brings in possible advantages to wide criteria, I think, in terms of subgrouping - but I'd like to understand more about the issues.
So after a day of feeling pretty angry about being asked to show my support for a study including someone whose work has just been exposed as... I don't have the words... I'm now thinking that I don't want to continue to give them the power to continue to wreck my future. And, paradoxically, that probably means I need to say "yes" to a study on which they're listed as involved.
Just my thoughts at the moment as I digest all this.
Ben Howell said:
On the flip side im almost stunned they are talking about metabolomics, in this context, in the UK. And biomed research for ME/CFS (dependant on the criteria proposed) is unbelievably exciting for the UK.
Confused.
I think a lot of people will be.