George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.socialThis is deeply shocking and disturbing, the opposite of scientific good practice. As I see it, a group of diehards promoting a discredited treatment (exercise "therapy" for ME/CFS patients) are seeking to stifle medical progress - to protect their reputations. And Cochrane has kowtowed to them. 🧵
I never thought a day would come when I would write a post this critical about the Cochrane Collaboration. But today was that day: absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2025/01/24/w... #mecfs
The result of their concerted reputation-washing is that patients continue to be abused and subjected to treatments that make their condition worse. However grand and eminent scientists may be, their reputations must always take second place to the evidence. They need to admit they got it wrong.
Instead, a massive propaganda effort, led by the Science Media Centre and lapped up by credulous journalists, has protected their discredited claims from criticism, at a devastating cost to patients. *There is no place for grandeur in science*.
It seems horribly symbolic of what is happening in other areas of public life: powerful interests override the public good, evidence and reason. The last places where this dynamic should operate are science and medicine. But even here, eminent bodies succumb to the pandemic of grovelling.
The thread on one page: skywriter.blue