In January, I wrote about the problematic online training course developed by the Royal College of General Practitioners and touted by Steve Brine MP as addressing the “misconceptions” about ME (or CFS/ME, as the online course calls the illness). The lead author of the course was Carolyn Chew-Graham, a professor of general practice research at…

The situation at Cochrane appears to remain fluid. Last week, the organization posted a notice that it is seeking a new editor-in-chief. The current occupant of the position, Dr David Tovey, is leaving in May. Dr Tovey has been at Cochrane for a decade, so this move could easily have been a long-planned departure. Since…

This morning, I sent the following message to Dr Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of The BMJ and editorial director of BMJ. The subject heading: “My remaining concerns…” Dear Fiona— Thank you for the quick changes to Nigel Hawkes’ BMJ news story about the UK Heath Research Authority’s letter on the PACE trial. I appreciate the addition…

After this month’s release of the Health Research Authority’s PACE analysis, Professor Michael Sharpe sent e-mails to at least two US publications requesting a retraction or major correction of critical articles. Professor Sharpe’s e-mails accused the writers involved of suggesting that PACE was “fraudulent.” This accusation was not true. In both cases, the writers had…

Because of various developments in the UK and elsewhere, I’ve neglected goings-on back home. I’m working on a couple of things now but in the meantime I decided to post something typically insightful that Jennie Spotila published last week on her blog, Occupy M.E. It’s a frustration with this project that I don’t have the…

I thought it might be helpful to re-post a list of questions I wanted to ask Professor White and his PACE colleagues in September, 2015–more than a month before Virology Blog posted the first installment of “Trial By Error: The Troubling Case of the PACE Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study.” I originally posted this list on…

Added Feb 12: I realized today that I wanted to add a couple of details. The new version of the BMJ article about the Health Research Authority analysis of PACE includes this sentence at the bottom: “Correction notice: On 8 February 2019 a new version of this article was posted with clarifications added.” For unexplained…

Last week, I reported that Bristol University had launched an independent investigation of research led by Professor Esther Crawley, at the request of the UK’s Health Research Authority. Today, the HRA released a report on the PACE trial that has portrayed it as a well-conducted study. GET/CBT supporters are framing this report as a vindication.…

Update: Since posting this several hours ago, I have learned that the story I’ve been “prebutting” is not in fact likely to appear imminently; I suppose that means it could be weeks before publication. I’m not sure whether I misinterpreted the reporter’s statement that obtaining my response to the “harassment” claims was the final outstanding…

Last week I broke the news that Bristol University is conducting an independent investigation of a number of studies that were exempted from ethical review on the grounds that they qualified as “service evaluation.” Because the issues involved are confusing and complex, I thought it would be helpful to repost here part of my initial…

Yesterday I reported that Bristol University, at the request of the UK Health Research Authority, is investigating a number of studies conducted by Professor Esther Crawley. The results of this investigation are expected in two months or so. Today I can disclose that the scrutiny involves papers linked to a specific research ethics committee (REC)…

The reporter writing the story I posted about earlier also contacted Professor Racaniello. Here are the questions asked, and his answers: Could you please say why David Tuller publishes his blog posts on your site, instead of publishing it on a blog/website of his own? A number of years ago a retrovirus was suspected to…