Trial By Error

Year: 2017

  • A Sneak Preview of Next Week’s Post

    By David Tuller, DrPH I wanted to post something this week, but not a whole long thing. So I thought I’d just post the top of what I’ll post in full next week. This week ends the first half–six months!–of my crowdfunded project. Sometime soon I’ll post something or other looking backward and forward a […]

  • Bristol’s Complaint to Berkeley

    By David Tuller, DrPH As it turns out, the University of Bristol did complain about me to Berkeley. I found out recently that there has indeed been “private and confidential communication” at a “senior level,” as Sue Paterson, Bristol’s director of legal services, suggested in her thuggish letter to me last month. I haven’t seen […]

  • My Questions for the Science Media Centre

    By David Tuller, DrPH On September 20, 2017, a BMJ Publishing Group journal, Archives of Disease in Childhood published the SMILE trial. This trial investigated an intervention called the Lightning Process as a treatment for kids with CFS/ME (as the study called the disease). The lead investigator was Professor Esther Crawley, the University of Bristol […]

  • The SMILE Trial’s Undisclosed Outcome-Swapping

    By David Tuller, DrPH So let’s talk about Professor Esther Crawley’s SMILE trial, published in September by the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, one of the BMJ Publishing Group’s titles. The study reported that a commercial intervention called the Lightning Process was an effective treatment for children with CFS/ME when offered along with what […]

  • My One-Sided Correspondence with Professor Crawley

    By David Tuller, DrPH Well, last week was certainly exciting! As I wrote on Wednesday, I was planning to post about Professor Esther Crawley’s SMILE trial. However, that plan changed when Sue Paterson, the University of Bristol’s director of legal services, e-mailed me what I guess was supposed to be a scary letter. The letter […]

  • The Crawley Chronicles, Continued

    By David Tuller, DrPH Update: About 20 minutes after posting this blog, I received the following communication from Ms. Paterson: Dear Dr Tuller Thank you for your email of 22 November. If by a ‘cease and desist’ letter you mean a letter threatening legal action if the recipient does not stop a specified activity or […]

  • Hey Bristol, Where Is My Cease and Desist Letter?

    By David Tuller, DrPH Earlier today, I e-mailed the following letter to Sue Paterson, University of Bristol’s Director of Legal Services, to clarify whether or not I had been sent a cease and desist letter (to cease and desist what, exactly?). Professor Esther Crawley made this claim at her public talk last Friday. I have […]

  • My Brief Encounter with Professor Crawley

    By David Tuller, DrPH At noon last Friday, at the University of Exeter’s Mood Disorders Centre, Professor Esther Crawley gave a talk called “What is new in paediatric CFS/ME research.” When I saw a notice about the event the day before, I felt it might be my one chance to ask her directly about her […]

  • What’s Going On, BMJ Best Practice?

    By David Tuller, DrPH Something’s weird over at BMJ Best Practice, a resource for clinical decision-making and an arm of the BMJ Publishing Group. Two days ago, Steven Lubet and I posted a blog praising the new guide written by Dr. James Baraniuk and apparently reviewed by Peter White, along with two other experts. First, […]

  • The Surprising New BMJ Best Practice Guide

    By Steven Lubet, JD, and David Tuller, DrPH Update: Nov 13th We wrote this post based on a version of the guide that appeared recently and had been updated on July 31, 2017. That version lists Peter White as among three peer-reviewers. As commenters pointed out soon after the post went up, however, Peter White’s […]

  • Current NICE Guidance Stands, For Now

    By David Tuller, DrPH Last week I sent an e-mail with some questions to Sir Andrew Dillon, the chief executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). In particular, the questions involved the status of the ten-year-old guidance for CFS/ME, CG53, and of references to the illness elsewhere within the NICE system. […]

  • Another Letter to NICE’s Sir Andrew Dillon

    By David Tuller, DrPH First, for those who might have missed it, here’s a conversation from This Week in Virology (TWiV), posted a few days ago. Dr. Racaniello and I discuss the CDC, NICE, Esther Crawley’s ethically challenged behavior, the CMRC, and other stuff. Second, earlier today, I sent the following e-mail to Sir Andrew […]