Trial by error, Continued: PACE Team’s Work for Insurance Companies Is “Not Related” to PACE. Really?
In their
Virology Blog response, the PACE team also stated that no insurance companies were involved in the research, that only three of the 19 investigators “have done consultancy work at various times for insurance companies,” and that this work “was not related to the research.” The first statement was true, but direct involvement in a study is of course only one possible form of conflict of interest. The second statement was false. According to
the PACE team’s conflict of interest disclosures in The Lancet, the actual number of researchers with insurance industry ties was four—along with the three principle investigators, physiotherapist Jessica Bavington acknowledged such links.
But here, I’ll focus on the third claim–that their consulting work “was not related to the research.” In particular, I’ll examine
an online article posted by Swiss Re, a large reinsurance company. The article describes a “web-based discussion group” held with Peter White, the lead PACE investigator, and reveals some of the claims-assessing recommendations arising from that presentation. White included consulting work with Swiss Re in his
Lancet disclosure.