Trial By Error

Author: David Tuller

  • A Letter to Archives of Disease in Childhood

    Earlier today, Professor Racaniello e-mailed the following letter to Nick Brown, the editor-in-chief of Archives of Disease in Childhood, one of the journals from the BMJ Group. Archives recently published a study of the Lightning Process in kids with ME/CFS. Dear Dr. Brown: In September, Archives of Disease in Childhood published a study called “Clinical…

  • Professor Crawley’s Bogus BuzzFeed Claims

    Tom Chivers’ terrific article on the Lightning Process and Professor Esther Crawley’s SMILE trial in the Archives of Disease in Childhood has received a lot of attention and comment. I wanted to respond to the short sections in which Professor Crawley seeks to justify her methodological choices. Here are the relevant passages: In the highest-quality…

  • My Six-Month Review

    This month is the start of the second half of my one-year crowdfunding commitment to keep reporting on ME/CFS, so I figured I should review what I’ve done so far, what I still hope to do, and what changes have taken place during the last six months. So, here goes. From July 1st through December…

  • COPE to BMJ Open: More Details, Please!

    Yesterday I reviewed an account of a publishing dilemma that had been submitted to the forum of the Committee on Publication Ethics. The COPE forum offers advice on thorny situations submitted anonymously by members. In this case, the submission appeared to be from BMJ Open and it appeared to be discussing Professor Esther Crawley’s school…

  • The School Absence Study, Revisited

    This post is about a serious issue–ethical approval for research studies involving children. It is also about how powerful institutions, like leading medical journals, respond to concerns. But the story is really too long and complicated. I recommend it only for those following things pretty closely or who for whatever reason like this kind of…

  • A Sneak Preview of Next Week’s Post

    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 bit. But not today.…

  • Bristol’s Complaint to Berkeley

    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 this communication so I’m…

  • My Questions for the Science Media Centre

    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 pediatrician and a well-known…

  • The SMILE Trial’s Undisclosed Outcome-Swapping

    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 was called “specialist medical…

  • My One-Sided Correspondence with Professor Crawley

    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 pointedly cited the “close…

  • The Crawley Chronicles, Continued

    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 behaviour, then I can…

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

    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 never received any such…