--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <LEnglish5@...> wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <LEnglish5@> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius"
> > > <anartaxius@> wrote:
> > >
> > > > (Problems with meditation research were highlighted recently
> > > > when a study on hypertension lead by an MUM physician was
> > > > pulled just minutes before publication in a major journal.)
> > >
> > > The researchers shot themselves in the foot. They requested a
> > > statement from the NIH about the study and the NIH suggested
> > > that the latest data be included in the study since some time
> > > had passed since the study was first submitted for review.
> >
> > Can you be more explicit about how they shot themselves
> > in the foot? They should have known better than to request
> > the statement from NIH? Or to request it before the study
> > was published?
>
> Well, I can't find the article where I read it, but apparently
> they were trying to get a positive PR statement from the NIH.
Yeah, but what aspect of that shouldn't they have been
doing? ("Shoot themselves in the foot" suggests they did
something they ought to have known better than to have done.)
> > And what did the "latest data" consist of? Was the study
> > ongoing, and what was being published just an interim
> > report?
>
> No way of knowing what the latest data says until (If) the
> paper is published. The study has been on-going for 9 years
> and will likely continue until the last person dies or stops
> doing TM.
I'm not asking what the latest data says, I'm asking about
the status of the study, or of what is or was being studied,
the actual stuff they are or were doing that the written
study reports on.
If the study is ongoing, then what was to be published
would be an interim report. But nothing in what has been
released publicly about the study, including its title
and the journal's press release, suggests that. Rather,
it appears that it was a nine-year study conducted from
1998 to 2007, and presumably completed (the active part)
in 2007.
So at this point I'm a little skeptical that "the latest
data," if that means data on the post-2007 progress of
the same patients, is an accurate description.
FWIW, Schneider, the first author, gave a statement to
a blogger about the paper's withdrawal that said, in part:
"During the week prior to publication, the authors received
additional requests for further clarification and data
analyses from external reviewers."
That doesn't sound like "the latest data," new data on the
post-2007 progress of the patients, either.
> > > This suggestion happened one week before the publication date
> > > and the new data was submitted 24 hours before the publication
> > > date, so the publishers decided to pull the study since the
> > > new data hadn't been reviewed.
> >
> > Why did the editors make such a mystery of this? Why didn't
> > they (or the authors, for that matter) explain what you
> > just did? They must have known not explaining it would
> > generate lots of dark speculation.
>
> Eh, the editors may not have known who requested the data
> and the authors may not have felt comfortable revealing who
> it was without checking first. THeir initial letter just
> said "external reviewers."
The editors did know and have so stated, as the blog post
you cite notes:
"Jann Ingmire, the director of media relations for JAMA
and the Archives Journals, sent the following clarification
late this afternoon [June 30]: 'The authors submitted the
additional data in a letter just prior to publication.
That letter was submitted by the authors in response to a
request for changes from the NIH program director (not the
journal).'"
This part was an update, so maybe you read the June 29
version of the blog post before it was added.
At any rate, what may be the missing piece here that you've
provided, if it's accurate, is why NIH came to request the
"further clarification and data analysis," i.e., because the
authors requested a PR statement from NIH, which inspired
the NIH folks to take another look at the paper, after
which they decided they needed additional clarification and
analysis before they could express an opinion.
The big question, still unanswered, is why, if anything was
missing from the original paper, this wasn't discovered
during the review process (which would have been very
thorough, not just because Archives of Internal Medicine's
standard review process is thorough, but because almost
certainly this paper would have undergone extra-specially
thorough review considering the TM connection).
> > And can you say where you got the information, at least in
> > general terms?
>
> http://blogs.forbes.com/larryhusten/2011/06/29/very-little-new-light-shed-on-the-archives-meditation-fiasco/
>
> Can't find another article I read earlier that goes more in
> depth. Google search isn't as reliable after the one-month
> period, it seems.
That's too bad, because that one bit of info about why the
authors contacted NIH could be important.
Incidentally, the author of the blog post you cite notes
that it would be "unusual for peer reviewers to be
communicating directly with the study authors."
> > > There is no indication that the study won't pass the new
> > > review process and be published.
> >
> > Well, one thing we know now for sure is that Vaj lied
> > outright when he wrote on July 6:
> >
> > "Actually the latest study was found to have had the data
> > deliberately skewed.
> >
> > "In an unprecedented move, the Archives of Internal Medicine
> > yanked a paper by the TM Org that was nine years in the
> > making, only minutes before publication."
>
> That last part is correct: it hasn't happened before.
Um, right. But Vaj made up the part about the journal
yanking the paper because it had found the data to be
"deliberately skewed."
