BMJ

Trial By Error: If Professor Crawley’s ACT Study Was Peer Reviewed, Where Are the Peer Reviews?

12 July 2022 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

Yesterday, I wrote a blog about a just-published but already out-dated conference abstract from a team led by Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged pediatrician and grant magnet. After I tweeted about it, I heard from Naomi Harvey, a zoologist, who said she’d written to BJPsychOpen about the abstract’s flaws. Hopefully, she—and any others who alerted the journal–will receive an adequate response.

My exchange with Dr Harvey prompted me to look again at the 2021 study (Clery et al) from which the conference abstract seems to have been drawn. Clery et al, published by BMJ Paediatrics Open, was called “Qualitative study of the acceptability and feasibility of acceptance and commitment therapy for adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome.” (BMJ Paediatrics Open describes itself as “an official journal of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.” Just to be clear; the RCPCH is a trade union that, like any trade union, promotes and protects the financial, political and professional interests of its members.)

Trial By Error: The Times Fact-Checks BMJ on NICE Committee; My Letter to BMJ’s Fiona Godlee

10 August 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

It is not often that a major news organization fact-checks BMJ, a leading medical publisher, in real time. But thatâ€™s what happened last week when The Times pushed back against biased BMJ reporting about the committee charged by the UKâ€™s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) with developing a new clinical guidance for ME/CFS. This isnâ€™t the first time The Times has seen through the propaganda campaign emanating from those with financial and reputational interests in maintaining the GET/CBT approach despite widespread rejection of its theoretical and scientific underpinnings.

Trial By Error: Three CBT/GET Proponents Quit NICE ME/CFS Guidance Panel as Publication Date Nears

7 August 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

The new ME/CFS clinical guidance from the UKâ€™s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is finishedâ€”and is to be publicly released on August 18th. In the meantime, this final version has been sent to registered stakeholdersâ€”even as three of the 21 members of the committee responsible for the guidance have stepped down without public explanation, per an â€œexclusiveâ€ report on BMJâ€™s news site. All three quitters represented the wing of the committee that promoted the purported benefits of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) as core treatments.

Trial By Error: BMJ Pushes Back Against New NICE Draft

21 December 2020 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

The BMJ has published an online â€œeditorialâ€ slamming the new draft of clinical guidelines for ME/CFS from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. The position expressed is an interesting one: Non-pharmacological treatments for â€œcomplex conditionsâ€ cannot be adequately measured by randomized trials, according to the two authors. It is, of course, noteworthy that The BMJ is mounting this argument only after an authoritative review commissioned by NICE found the evidence for CBT and GET was mostly of â€œvery lowâ€ quality– although some was just of â€œlowâ€ quality.

Trial By Error: My Letter to BMJ Paediatrics Open about the CBT-Music Therapy Study

25 November 2020 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

On November 12, I received my latest letter from BMJ’s so-called research integrity office about the pile of potential research misconduct otherwise known as the pediatric study of cognitive behavior therapy and music therapy as a treatment for chronic fatigue after acute EBV. This study was published in April by BMJ Paediatrics Open and immediately came under sharp and justified criticism–including from me.

Trial By Error: Update on BMJ’s CBT-Music Therapy Study (h/t Steinkopf and Tack)

23 November 2020 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

I have written multiple posts this year about a Norwegian study of cognitive behavior therapy plus music therapy as a treatment for chronic fatigue after acute EBV infection (aka mononucleosis and glandular fever). The study, published in April by BMJ Paediatrics Open, was rife with methodological and ethical flaws. It should not have been accepted in the first place.