6 ms·

From the last discussion: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-the-bmj/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-t... T

From the last discussion: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-the-bmj/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-t... The BMJ is not the shining city on the hill here. You can have problems with Facebook policing information, but Thacker is unquestionably an anti-vax conspiracy theorist and the BMJ is allowing him to use their reputation to push that narrative.

NoPie 5y ago
It states that Thacker has been double vaccinated with Pfizer vaccine. Anti-vax conspiracy theorist? That is clearly nonsense.
- Avamander 5y ago
  Plenty of quacks follow the principle of "do as I say, not as I do." It's a very common behaviour amongst populist politicians to talk shit about vaccines and then being fully vaccinated.
  - NoPie 5y ago
    It has nothing to do with the author of the article. It just baseless accusations.
  - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
    I didn’t read the article, but isn’t it plausible that whatever they did allegedly did wrong wasn’t significant enough to warrant recommending against taking the vaccine?
    - NoPie 5y ago
      They didn't recommend anything against the vaccine. It is just overzealous fact-checkers who (similarly to antivax) couldn't admit that they were confused about the article and mislabelled it as false.
jjgreen 5y ago
Then there will be response articles which expose those errors as such, a consensus will be reached and we will move on to other issues. That is the nature of scientific discourse. Expecting everyone to shut up just because you shout "ANTIVAX" is not.
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  We all know it this ideal of "just debunk it" doesn't work. Not just because a correction doesn't have the same reach, but because one audience will actively reject and ignore the evidence and then continue using the article on social media as "evidence" itself.
  - mfcl 5y ago
    I want to say the opposite. The truth tends to win on the long run. On the other hand, allowing institutions to simply censor whatever it does not like by pressing a button never ended well.
  - alibarber 5y ago
    The audience for the BMJ is clearly listed as 'intended for health professionals'. I do think that these people would take seriously evidence for opposing views or experiments and draw their own - valid professional conclusions. These people are also unlikely to get their information from social media and take action on patient care because of it. I am firmly against this lowest common denominator approach of people not being able to publish any 'hard science' anywhere through fear of it being taken out of context on social media - particularly after the push of recent years to do the exact opposite and make such stuff open access for all. The BMJ is not the problem in the world of fake/outrage/out of context news online.
    - scatters 5y ago
      So you're in favor of Facebook's policy on this? The article can still reach its intended audience (as you say, health professionals don't get their information from social media) and surely the BMJ will be more - not less - willing to publish controversial articles if they don't need to worry about them being used to mislead the public at large by being shared out of context.
Ardren 5y ago
Statements from the company that did the fact checking - https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/11/fact-check-british-medical-journal-did-not-reveal-disqualifying-and-ignored-reports-of-flaws-in-pfizer-vaccine-trial.html https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/11/fact-check-britis... - https://leadstories.com/analysis/2021/12/lead-stories-response-to-a-bmjcom-open-letter-objecting-to-a-lead-stories-fact-check.html https://leadstories.com/analysis/2021/12/lead-stories-respon...
- kgwgk 5y ago
  From article: "[the company that did the fact checking] said Jackson was not a “lab-coated scientist” and that her qualifications amounted to a “30-hour certification in auditing techniques.” Jackson has more than 15 years’ experience in clinical research coordination and management and previously held a position as director of operations." Talk about missing context and misleading statements...
undecisive 5y ago
Have you actually read that article? It's expecting a whole lot of detailed evidence from an article. And maybe they're right? Maybe the article should have provided more excruciating details. But the details it does provide - just from the bits quoted here - seem enough to justify a stance of "We need to do better than this", at least. It smacks of "Yes, some sloppy science was done here, but you can't prove it changed the results? Can you? Can you prove it? Huh? No? Well then shut your dirty mouth!" Yes, this was supposed to be a blind study but participants had pages detailing whether they had the placebo or not in their notes. Did anyone actually read those pages? Nobody knows. Did you read those pages? Did you? I bet they didn't! I bet NOBODY reads the participants notes! Nobody ready them, it's all fine, and they yanked those pages out within a few somethings (We'll gloss over how someone might have found this out, and whether they were likely to be privy to the information already) Yes, there were a bunch of used needles discarded in normal binbags rather than in a sharps box, but that doesn't PROVE that they were poorly trained! Oh no. It was probably just a bad day. Did it change the outcome? You can't prove it did! Don't tell me about it unless you're sure! No, there's no evidence that THESE issues were reported, but look! Other issues were reported! The management had previously discussed how bad they were at the science! If they knew they were bad, they wouldn't continue to be bad would they! And if things were reported, and other things weren't, that's not likely is it... that's just confusing... CONFUUUUUUSSIIIIINNNGG Yes, they had to take corrective action, but at least they took corrective action! There couldn't have been THAT many people affected, could there? Do you know? I don't know. I bet there weren't many. A handful maybe. Probably just an old couple who were discarded early on for licking the other participants faces. It's inconsequential. Definitely not a problem. No problems here! Move on! It's almost comical. It also really bugs me that rather than saying "The article says", throughout they say "Thacker says". They've made it a personal vendetta against an evil person making things up, like they're not even trying to be balanced about it. That said, I love the summary: "In the end, we’re left with a lot of smoke, but no clear fire." Hmm.. if only there was a well known saying about this. No ... something ... without ... oh, I don't know. Seems legit.
- nickelpro 5y ago
  I've read the article, Facebook's "fact checker" page, the BMJ's response, and the fact checker's response, as well as the posted response from Science Based Medicine. None of it "smacks of" anything, the series of events is clearly laid out. A former Ventavia regional director provided internal company documents to Thacker that laid out potential flaws in clinical trials run by the company for Pfizer's vaccine candidate. Thacker's reporting on these documents places noticeable spin towards anti-vax sympathies for example: > Thacker writes in the introduction, in which he claims that Ventavia unblinded patients, not that “inadvertent unblinding may have occurred”. There’s a huge difference between the two. Even without Thacker's spin, this is concerning and deserves investigation. However, for the overall safety of the Pfizer vaccine it's not a significant factor. Ventavia ran 3 out of 153 clinical sites, and signed up about 1000 of 44000 subjects who participated in the trial. Even completely disregarding any data that came from Ventavia, there would be overwhelming evidence of the vaccine's efficacy and safety. The obvious framing here should be that Ventavia is potentially an irresponsible steward of pharmaceutical trials and Pfizer needs to have greater level of oversight over such contractors. The framing Thacker went with is that the Pfizer vaccine's safety and efficacy are in question due to falsified trials. The latter is simply untrue, and reveals an agenda that is concerning from an editor at the BMJ.
twic 5y ago
Science Based Medicine isn't exactly squeaky clean either: https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/science-based-medicines-coverage https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/science-based-medicines-c... Now, someone post a takedown of Singal so we can keep the chain going ...
- nickelpro 5y ago
  If the BMJ issued a retraction and explanation in the same way that SBM did over that review we wouldn't be having this discussion. Hell if the BMJ didn't actively protest the fact checker's representation of the article as "missing context" we wouldn't be having this discussion. Publishing missteps are inevitable. The BMJ is claiming authorial supremacy above its critics, that's the root of the controversy.
  - twic 5y ago
    The retraction was the misstep.

NoPie 5y ago

It states that Thacker has been double vaccinated with Pfizer vaccine. Anti-vax conspiracy theorist? That is clearly nonsense.

Avamander 5y ago
Plenty of quacks follow the principle of "do as I say, not as I do." It's a very common behaviour amongst populist politicians to talk shit about vaccines and then being fully vaccinated.
- NoPie 5y ago
  It has nothing to do with the author of the article. It just baseless accusations.
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  I didn’t read the article, but isn’t it plausible that whatever they did allegedly did wrong wasn’t significant enough to warrant recommending against taking the vaccine?
  - NoPie 5y ago
    They didn't recommend anything against the vaccine. It is just overzealous fact-checkers who (similarly to antivax) couldn't admit that they were confused about the article and mislabelled it as false.

jjgreen 5y ago

Then there will be response articles which expose those errors as such, a consensus will be reached and we will move on to other issues. That is the nature of scientific discourse. Expecting everyone to shut up just because you shout "ANTIVAX" is not.

sascha_sl 5y ago
We all know it this ideal of "just debunk it" doesn't work. Not just because a correction doesn't have the same reach, but because one audience will actively reject and ignore the evidence and then continue using the article on social media as "evidence" itself.
- mfcl 5y ago
  I want to say the opposite. The truth tends to win on the long run. On the other hand, allowing institutions to simply censor whatever it does not like by pressing a button never ended well.
- alibarber 5y ago
  The audience for the BMJ is clearly listed as 'intended for health professionals'. I do think that these people would take seriously evidence for opposing views or experiments and draw their own - valid professional conclusions. These people are also unlikely to get their information from social media and take action on patient care because of it. I am firmly against this lowest common denominator approach of people not being able to publish any 'hard science' anywhere through fear of it being taken out of context on social media - particularly after the push of recent years to do the exact opposite and make such stuff open access for all. The BMJ is not the problem in the world of fake/outrage/out of context news online.
  - scatters 5y ago
    So you're in favor of Facebook's policy on this? The article can still reach its intended audience (as you say, health professionals don't get their information from social media) and surely the BMJ will be more - not less - willing to publish controversial articles if they don't need to worry about them being used to mislead the public at large by being shared out of context.

Ardren 5y ago

Statements from the company that did the fact checking - https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/11/fact-check-british-medical-journal-did-not-reveal-disqualifying-and-ignored-reports-of-flaws-in-pfizer-vaccine-trial.html https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/11/fact-check-britis... - https://leadstories.com/analysis/2021/12/lead-stories-response-to-a-bmjcom-open-letter-objecting-to-a-lead-stories-fact-check.html https://leadstories.com/analysis/2021/12/lead-stories-respon...

kgwgk 5y ago
From article: "[the company that did the fact checking] said Jackson was not a “lab-coated scientist” and that her qualifications amounted to a “30-hour certification in auditing techniques.” Jackson has more than 15 years’ experience in clinical research coordination and management and previously held a position as director of operations." Talk about missing context and misleading statements...

undecisive 5y ago

Have you actually read that article? It's expecting a whole lot of detailed evidence from an article. And maybe they're right? Maybe the article should have provided more excruciating details. But the details it does provide - just from the bits quoted here - seem enough to justify a stance of "We need to do better than this", at least. It smacks of "Yes, some sloppy science was done here, but you can't prove it changed the results? Can you? Can you prove it? Huh? No? Well then shut your dirty mouth!" Yes, this was supposed to be a blind study but participants had pages detailing whether they had the placebo or not in their notes. Did anyone actually read those pages? Nobody knows. Did you read those pages? Did you? I bet they didn't! I bet NOBODY reads the participants notes! Nobody ready them, it's all fine, and they yanked those pages out within a few somethings (We'll gloss over how someone might have found this out, and whether they were likely to be privy to the information already) Yes, there were a bunch of used needles discarded in normal binbags rather than in a sharps box, but that doesn't PROVE that they were poorly trained! Oh no. It was probably just a bad day. Did it change the outcome? You can't prove it did! Don't tell me about it unless you're sure! No, there's no evidence that THESE issues were reported, but look! Other issues were reported! The management had previously discussed how bad they were at the science! If they knew they were bad, they wouldn't continue to be bad would they! And if things were reported, and other things weren't, that's not likely is it... that's just confusing... CONFUUUUUUSSIIIIINNNGG Yes, they had to take corrective action, but at least they took corrective action! There couldn't have been THAT many people affected, could there? Do you know? I don't know. I bet there weren't many. A handful maybe. Probably just an old couple who were discarded early on for licking the other participants faces. It's inconsequential. Definitely not a problem. No problems here! Move on! It's almost comical. It also really bugs me that rather than saying "The article says", throughout they say "Thacker says". They've made it a personal vendetta against an evil person making things up, like they're not even trying to be balanced about it. That said, I love the summary: "In the end, we’re left with a lot of smoke, but no clear fire." Hmm.. if only there was a well known saying about this. No ... something ... without ... oh, I don't know. Seems legit.

nickelpro 5y ago
I've read the article, Facebook's "fact checker" page, the BMJ's response, and the fact checker's response, as well as the posted response from Science Based Medicine. None of it "smacks of" anything, the series of events is clearly laid out. A former Ventavia regional director provided internal company documents to Thacker that laid out potential flaws in clinical trials run by the company for Pfizer's vaccine candidate. Thacker's reporting on these documents places noticeable spin towards anti-vax sympathies for example: > Thacker writes in the introduction, in which he claims that Ventavia unblinded patients, not that “inadvertent unblinding may have occurred”. There’s a huge difference between the two. Even without Thacker's spin, this is concerning and deserves investigation. However, for the overall safety of the Pfizer vaccine it's not a significant factor. Ventavia ran 3 out of 153 clinical sites, and signed up about 1000 of 44000 subjects who participated in the trial. Even completely disregarding any data that came from Ventavia, there would be overwhelming evidence of the vaccine's efficacy and safety. The obvious framing here should be that Ventavia is potentially an irresponsible steward of pharmaceutical trials and Pfizer needs to have greater level of oversight over such contractors. The framing Thacker went with is that the Pfizer vaccine's safety and efficacy are in question due to falsified trials. The latter is simply untrue, and reveals an agenda that is concerning from an editor at the BMJ.

twic 5y ago

Science Based Medicine isn't exactly squeaky clean either: https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/science-based-medicines-coverage https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/science-based-medicines-c... Now, someone post a takedown of Singal so we can keep the chain going ...

nickelpro 5y ago
If the BMJ issued a retraction and explanation in the same way that SBM did over that review we wouldn't be having this discussion. Hell if the BMJ didn't actively protest the fact checker's representation of the article as "missing context" we wouldn't be having this discussion. Publishing missteps are inevitable. The BMJ is claiming authorial supremacy above its critics, that's the root of the controversy.
- twic 5y ago
  The retraction was the misstep.