Trial By Error

Tag: Peter White

  • PACE Authors Respond to Monbiot Column with Tired Arguments

    Last week, Guardian columnist George Monbiot wrote another scathing column about the failure of the UK health care system to address the plight of people diagnosed with ME/CFS. (Monbiot’s previous column on the issue appeared in March; our interview about it is here.) The new column was pegged to the case of 27-year-old Maeve Boothby…

  • PACE Authors Now Blame “Misunderstandings” for GET/CBT Criticisms

    It is hard to know what to make of the news that a peer-reviewed journal has actually accepted a PACE-reunion paper from the three lead investigators—Professors Michael Sharpe, Trudie Chalder, and Peter White. Even more so for a paper titled–without irony, it seems–“Evidence based care for people with chronic fatigue syndrome and myalgic encephalomyelitis.” This…

  • Professor White & Colleagues “Regret” Ignoring Null Results in GETSET Trial Follow-Up

    Last week, I wrote about the correction made to the “Highlights” section of the paper reporting the long-term follow-up results for the GETSET trial. (The trial was conducted by Professor Peter White, one of the three lead PACE investigators, and colleagues.)  I noted that this correction was not indicated or identified—a fact I attributed to…

  • Journal Corrects “Highlights” of GETSET Paper; A Letter about Prof White’s GET Safety Paper

    I have pressed the Journal of Psychosomatic Research to correct a recent paper—”Guided graded exercise self-help for chronic fatigue syndrome: Long term follow up and cost-effectiveness following the GETSET trial.” The senior author is Professor Peter White. Now the journal has published a revised “Highlights” section of the paper that accurately presents the study’s null…

  • More Disinformation from Professor White in Journal of Psychosomatic Research

    The Journal of Psychosomatic Research seems to be suffering from some sort of identity crisis. Earlier this year, the editor and his two immediate predecessors published an admirable editorial in which they noted the serious risk of bias in subjective outcomes in studies that are not rigorously blinded. Yet the journal’s editorial advisory board is…

  • GETSET Study Reports Null Results for Self-Help Graded Exercise–but Declares Success Anyway

    The Journal of Psychosomatic Research (JSR), an influential publication. recently published an article that made a crucial point—in clinical trials, subjective outcomes are at “a greater risk of bias due to any unblinding.” The article, which I wrote about here, was authored by the journal’s current editor and two previous editors, both of whom are…

  • Questions for Dr. White and his PACE Colleagues

    I have been seeking answers from the PACE researchers for more than a year. At the end of this post, I have included the list of questions I’d compiled by last September, when my investigation was nearing publication. Most of these questions remain unanswered. The PACE researchers are currently under intense criticism for having rejected…