David Tuller

Trial By Error: The 7th Anniversary of My Expose About the Fraudulent–i.e. Misleading, Deceptive–PACE Trial

29 October 2022 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

*October is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error: project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/33528

This month marks the seventh anniversary of Virology Blog’s publication of my 15,000-word investigation of the egregiously flawed and fraudulent (i.e. misleading, deceptive) piece of crap known as the PACE trial. (Incidentally, it is also the one-year anniversary of the new and much-improved guidelines for ME/CFS from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.) To write that piece, I spent more than a year reading and interviewing people about the trial, traveled to England to meet with PACE participant and others, and consulted extensively with academic colleagues in epidemiology, biostatistics, and infectious diseases. And as I have always acknowledged, I relied extensively on the knowledge and wisdom of the amazing ME/CFS patient community.

(The PACE authors and the editor of The Lancet, which published the first results, refused to talk with me.)

Trial By Error: German Draft Report on ME/CFS Raises Alarms for Promoting CBT and GET

28 October 2022 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

The European ME Coalition (EMEC) has published a statement about and an analysis of a recently released report about ME/CFS from a Germany agency, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). With EMEC’s permission, I have re-posted the statement in full below. The original post can be found here. The in-depth analysis, a separate document that runs to 13 pages, can be found here.

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Trial By Error: My Most Recent Letter to the HRA Related to Ethical Lapses at the University of Bristol

27 October 2022 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

In 2019, Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged grant magnet, was asked to make corrections to the ethics statements in eleven of her papers after a joint report from the Health Research Authority (HRA) and her own institution found deficiencies in her work. (My first post on this matter was four years ago.)

Trial By Error: So the Dog Ate Professor Crawley’s Corrections AND Her Correspondence As Well

25 October 2022 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

I’ve been waiting to hear from the UK’s Health Research Authority about why seven papers from Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged grant magnet, have not been corrected–as mandated in a joint 2019 report from the HRA and her own academic institution. As many readers are aware, the joint report provided specific language to fix the ethics statements in 11 separate papers. But only four of the papers have been corrected.

Trial By Error: New Study Promotes “Bespoke” Hospital Rehab Program for Kids with ME/CFS

24 October 2022 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health recently published a paper called “Key Features of a Multi-Disciplinary Hospital-Based Rehabilitation Program for Children and Adolescents with Moderate to Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ME/CFS.” The investigators retrospectively reviewed the records of 27 children and young people (CYP) who were treated in a ward-based rehabilitation program in 2015 and later discharged from the ME/CFS service.

Trial By Error: Did the Dog Eat Professor Crawley’s Seven Missing Corrections?

16 October 2022 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

UPDATE on October 25th: To ensure a more complete record of my correspondence with the HRA, I have added to the end of this post a subsequent letter from the agency indicating that they had received a response from Bristol and were considering what to do, and my letter in response to that news–an exchange that occurred on October 18th and 19th.

On October 5th, I got an e-mail from the Health Research Authority in relation to the concerns I had raised with the agency, which is part of the National Health Service involved with research ethics. The concerns involved the problematic practices of Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol’s ethically and methodologically challenged pediatrician and grant magnet. Three years ago, a joint investigation from Bristol and the HRA requested that she correct the ethics statements in eleven papers. So far, only four of them have been corrected.