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Scandal in BMJ's XMRV/CFS Research

Otis

Señor Mumbler
Messages
1,117
Location
USA
WOW Parvo

Way to pull this all together in a way that even I can (mostly) grasp. Enjoy a well deserved rest.

:In bed:

Otis
 

natasa778

Senior Member
Messages
1,774
Well done Parvo have a nice long WELL DESERVED rest now

as for
Any chance you could do a bit of this investigative journalism on Simon Wessley's "outside" interests ?

And that Sudlow gal does look a bit fishy!! Something is not right.... can't put my finger on it... maybe her being a Welcome Trust scientist, and being so heavily into 'genetic causes' of stroke (I don't know why but that one does ring little alarm bells for me)... and what with the Welcome Trust investing so heavily in Institute of Psychiatry... Are they involved in insurance side of health business at all? What about their recent merger with who was it again, GSK?
 
G

Gerwyn

Guest
Well done Parvo have a nice long WELL DESERVED rest now

as for


And that Sudlow gal does look a bit fishy!! Something is not right.... can't put my finger on it... maybe her being a Welcome Trust scientist, and being so heavily into 'genetic causes' of stroke (I don't know why but that one does ring little alarm bells for me)... and what with the Welcome Trust investing so heavily in Institute of Psychiatry... Are they involved in insurance side of health business at all? What about their recent merger with who was it again, GSK?

they are heavily into psychiatric drugs the wellcome foundation is owned by glaxo smith kline this lady is employed by a drug company
 

flex

Senior Member
Messages
304
Location
London area
:balloons::balloons:Absolutely brilliant Parvo! :balloons::balloons:

Thank you Thank you.

Have a good :In bed:



Excellent work Parvo,

thank god you have put all this work together in one place so that Cort has all the information needed along with all the other posts to finally understand where we are all coming from.

Well, glad the whole debate is over now ...that must be it now ....surely.........
:worried:
 
G

Gerwyn

Guest
Events Simon Wesselly and the wellcome foundation
To coincide with the exhibition, a lively programme of discussions, debates, film screenings and tours will allow visitors to engage in dialogue with experts from the arts and sciences.
Subjects discussed will include: How do we remember war? What does trauma mean in different cultures? Can 21st-century engineering and technology rebuild a body? Speakers include: Simon Wessely, Director, King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry and Martin Conway, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, University of Leeds.
The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending over 600 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing.
 

natasa778

Senior Member
Messages
1,774
they are heavily into psychiatric drugs the wellcome foundation is owned by glaxo smith kline this lady is employed by a drug company

Lots of her research work focuses on use of aspirin for stroke risk reduction. Wasn't that line of research 'rumoured' to be paid for and biased for pharma-friendly outcomes? http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/pages/profiles/profiles.asp?ProfileId=5

Dr Michael Sharpe (from the same Uni as her - Edinburgh), was also funded by Welcome Trust. Or maybe still is?

Maybe this should be under another thread...
 

julius

Watchoo lookin' at?
Messages
785
Location
Canada
My question is about this point; the attempt to Minimalize the risk of including patients with delayed convalescence of a viral infection.

To do this they required that the symptoms be present for at least a year. So wouldn't that be good, in that it would allow for chronic viral infection (herpes, EBV, XMRV) , but rule out a transient viral infection (flu, cold)?

..Anybody?
 
G

Gerwyn

Guest
For IOP read kings college

Approximately 70% of the IOP's income comes from the research it conducts. Approximately 20% is from clinical work performed for the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. Approximately 10% of gross income is from taught courses offered to postgraduate students.[5]

Sources include the government's National Institute for Health Research and Higher Education Funding Council for England, grant-giving bodies such as the Medical Research Council (UK) and the Wellcome Trust, as well as other governmental, charitable and private-sector organisations. Individual research teams secure around 130 million of funds for their projects each year. Many projects are carried out in partnership with other university and health services, charities and private companies.[6]

Wesselly and co are funded by the wellcome trust

The IOP and the pharmaceutical company Lundbeck are leading one of the largest ever academic-industry collaborations in research, known as NEWMEDS - Novel Methods leading to New Medications in Depression and Schizophrenia. The project is part of the Innovative Medicines Initiative developed by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations and the European Commission. NEWMEDS aims to facilitate the development of new psychiatric medications by bringing top scientists and academics together in partnership with nearly every major global drug company.[7]

esearchers seek to understand more, for example, about how a patient’s state of mind can make a difference to how quickly they recover from surgery, or how well they cope with a diagnosis of a chronic disease. The Section also studies, develops and trials treatments for debilitating illnesses that either currently lack medical explanation or involve both body and mind.

The Chronic Fatigue Research and Treatment Unit is jointly run by the Section with King’s College Hospital: this national specialist service undertakes assessment, treatment and research. General Hospital Psychiatry researchers are involved, for example, in the MRC PACE Trial, the largest trial of treatments for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME to date, which is testing the effectiveness of different therapies.



Many of the Section’s members are also part of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research, run jointly by the Division of Psychological Medicine and Psychiatry and the Department of War Studies in the IoP’s sister School of Social Science and Public Policy at King’s College London. Their research includes the health consequences of serving with the UK armed forces and the history of military psychiatry. This work is complemented by ongoing research within the Section concerning the impact of terrorism on ordinary people.

Wesselly is head of this unit but it is a devision of kings funded by the wellcome trust
 

Cort

Phoenix Rising Founder
While everybody's rejoicing can I point some things (and then run for cover :))

“Well characterized” somberly implies that the patients studied were robustly and meaningfully comparable to those in the landmark Science XMRV study. Namely: Canadian/Fukuda Criteria Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients with severe disability, reproducible immune abnormalities, cognitive deficits, prolonged, disabling fatigue, low V02 max, and multiple longitudinal measurements of clinical and laboratory abnormalities (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1179052/DC1 ).

Well characterized some does not mean that the patients were characterized in the same way as the Science study. It simply means that they knew who those patients were. With regards the characterization of the Science study patients - the WPI initially said they all the patients had those characteristics, then said they didn't. They went from highly disabled immune deficient, repeat exercise blasted patients to 'typical CFS patients'.

First they simply stated they cultured the samples to find the virus then they stated they actually had to look at samples taken at different times from the patients. So much for well characterized patients in the Science study.

Here's where I run for cover....::)

I thought the rest of Part I was very well done! The BMJ clearly exposed their zeal at negating XMRV in their editorial. They almost said 'we couldn't help ourselves". Nicely written Parvo..
 

Cort

Phoenix Rising Founder
Of note was the last sentence: “These inclusion and exclusion procedures resulted in a study sample of 298 subjects.”
395 self-referred patients
Patients with definite or suspected illnesses causing fatigue excluded
Patients taking heart meds excluded – i.e. many advanced ME/CFS patients excluded
Final study sample of 298

Gerwyn on the PR Forums was audacious enough to question the self-referral and telephone diagnosis process. Surely this was on par with the Science patient cohort procedures!

Its not uncommon at all to knock out a quarter of the patients answering this type of survey. I agree this is too vague "Patients with definite or suspected illnesses causing fatigue" but they didn't end up knocking that many patients out - so its not a big concern.

Gerwyn on the PR Forums was audacious enough to question the self-referral and telephone diagnosis process

Yes the patients were self referred or talked to on a telephone. I thought I saw something where they were seen in a clinic as well but I can't find it again. If that's not true then Parvo and Gerwyn have a point. I should relate, though, my story of being in a study. My twin brother and I applied for a Twin Study and were give a stack of questionnaires' and we had a telephone interview. We also sent in medical records. On the basis of that they flew us into Seattle for a five day twin study! We were one of about 15 pairs to do it. I was surprised to tell you the truth. That study was vetted by the NIH - and they're pretty tough about that stuff. That was it!

The psychiatric evaluations, while obviously troubling! are a little beside the point; they were psychologists - so they were going to do psychological evaluations. It doesn't necessarily mean anything about the patients themselves - except that they were sick people who got a psychiatric evaluation instead of real treatment. There is a train of thought that people with psychological problems and CFS are more likely to end up at a psychs research study and that's certainly an issue. I imagine, though, that everyone in the Netherlands with CFS who ended up in a study probably ended up in one - that's were the primary care doctors sent them.