Intimidation and bullying of PACE trial critics

Engaging in the intimidation of PACE critics has taken place for many years.

Keith Geraghty: "...after I published articles that were critical of the PACE trial, two of the PACE authors W&S lodged complaints about me and my work to my host University. Emails and phone calls to ones bosses is very intimidating." — "... within weeks [of requesting access to PACE trial data], a complaint was made to my home institution, the University of Manchester - from Prof. Peter White, stating I was acting in a highly unprofessional manner."

Caroline Struthers: "I was intimidated and upset when Larun wrote to my boss to complain about me when I posted @julierehmeyer's article on my personal FB page." Lillebeth Larun is author of the Cochrane review of exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Struthers had posted Rehmeyer's Stat article ''Bad science misled millions with chronic fatigue syndrome. Here’s how we fought back.''

Professor Michael Sharpe attempted to obtain a retraction or correction of the article by Julie Rehmeyer, and also of an article by Professor Steven Lubet titled How a study about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was doctored, adding to pain and stigma.

Dr Emma Reinhold: "I tweeted that I hoped PACE would be discredited and tagged Ben Goldacre, not knowing his connection with Simon Wessely. Within 3 days Simon Wessely followed me on Twitter. His wife sent me a facebook friend request and the RCGP said they had received 'complaints' and were considering cancelling the EDS Spotlight project (which I had just been appointed to run but had not received a contract at that stage) to produce the EDS toolkit for GPs. We were told by RCGP we couldn't mention fatigue in the context of EDS. We refused to comply as this is contrary to the evidence."

During a UK parliamentary debate on myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and the PACE trial, Carol Monaghan revealed that Professor Sharpe had written to tell her that her behavior was unbecoming of an MP.

Professor Esther Crawley has attempted to silence and intimidate David Tuller.

Other attempts to suppress criticism
An attempt was made to block publication of a Journal of Health Psychology, Special Issue: The PACE Trial by claiming that it had not been peer reviewed. (Original post by Prof. Coyne is no longer available.)

According to Professor Jonathan Edwards "If you criticize PACE in the UK, there is a quiet phone call to your employer and the next morning you are asked to a meeting to reconsider your contract. I get emails from people to whom this has happened. The only reason why I am the only UK academic to call out on PACE is that I am retired so do not have an employer."

Patients that were critical of the PACE trial were targeted by a smear campaign that variously portrayed them as violent militants or activists engaging in a campaign of harassment.

Professor James Coyne: "I have a better record of quality and quantity of publications than any of the #PACE investigators but they somehow found me unqualified to write or review papers related to the trial. They even challenged my competence to analyze the trial data when I requested it". "Professor Michael Sharpe filed a @ COPE complaint concerning J Health Psych allowing me to review his commentary on # PACEgate, citing my request for the PACE data as demonstrating bias and undeclared conflict of interest." When Coyne criticized the PACE trial on his blog hosted by PLOS ONE, the PACE authors pressured PLOS ONE to forbid him from writing any further articles on the topic. According to Coyne, when he revealed this to a journalist, PLOS ONE responded by abruptly blocking him from posting altogether.