Covid Bias at the BMJ

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Covid Bias at the BMJ
by Carl Heneghan at Brownstone Institute

Covid Bias at the BMJ

This week, John Ioannidis and his colleagues published a paper on Covid-19 advocacy bias in the BMJ, concluding that the ‘BMJ had a strong bias in favour of authors advocating an aggressive approach to COVID-19 mitigation.’

The authors don’t hold back, saying the ‘BMJ had massive bias towards specific COVID-19-related advocacy favouring aggressive measures’. The BMJ became an outlet for indieSAGE/Vaccines-Plus advocates who outperformed SAGE members, (16-fold), Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) advocates (64-fold), and 16-fold compared with the most-cited group. Short opinion pieces and analyses drove the majority of these differences.

Advocates of restricted, focused measures were virtually extinct from the BMJ pages: ‘BMJ editors, staff and apparently advocate contributors developed a massive literature, comprised mostly of opinion pieces that in general (as acknowledged by the BMJ) underwent no external review in the BMJ.’

If the BMJ were a broadcaster, it would have been reported to OFCOM: the UK’s communications regulator because the news should be reported with due impartiality.

The BMJ’s approach is the exact opposite of their response to the Swine flu Pandemic. Back then, they joined our Tamiflu team to publish our reviews.

They also created the Tamiflu campaign: The BMJ’s first open data campaign aimed to pressure companies to release the underlying clinical trial data for two globally stockpiled anti-influenza drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza. With Deb Cohen as their investigation editor, they helped track down the data.

At the outset of the pandemic, the BMJ was on a similar track: On 2nd March 2020, Tom published Covid-19—many questions, no clear answers in the BMJ Opinion. “Jokers and spoofers are doing overtime on the web. The authorities cried wolf in 2005 and 2009 with influenza and see what you get now,” he wrote. On the 20th of March, Tom published his last BMJ post on supermarket wisdom. In October 2020, Carl stood down as BMJ EBM editor-in-chief.

So, what changed?

In Spring, Tom submitted the Cochrane review on Non-pharmaceutical interventions to the BMJ at the request of one of the editors. The two previous review updates were published in the BMJ (2008 and 2009) in response to the Swine flu pandemic, and there was a need for an update. The review – last updated in 2011 – had grown in size and was submitted in two parts – the first part included the mask and distancing evidence, which was rejected after the committee on the 10th of April, and the second part was rejected without review.

Editors expressed “worries” because the confidence intervals did not exclude a huge protective effect for healthcare providers and a moderate (and potentially important) effect for the general public of face masks. They also wanted to lower the evidence bar: “Most editors felt that it was important to integrate RCT evidence with observational evidence.” Apparently, “case control studies, can be quite good for looking at the effects of preventive interventions.”

Ultimately, the review did not find convincing evidence from randomized trials for the effectiveness of face masks, eye protection, or person distancing. Because the results didn’t fit with the editor’s preconceptions, it was rejected.

The final straw wasn’t when we submitted a paper on transmission that led to abusive anonymous review comments. It was the publication of a character assassination that opined, ‘How best can scientists push back against science denialist campaigns?’

The authors Gavin Yamey and David Gorski didn’t fact-check their article, there was no right of reply or communication with Sunetra Gupta or Carl, and the BMJ thought it was OK to slander those mentioned as “merchants of doubt.”

In the RealClearInvestigations, Paul Thacker reported, ” While Gorski and Yamey provided no evidence that Koch money funded the GBD signatories, the BMJ still published their piece….The BMJ article is full of errors that ought to have never found their way into any publication,” wrote Martin Kulldorff in the Spectator.

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We have published many times in the BMJ since 1995, including several articles with the editor-in-chief (e.g., 2017, 2019), and we have worked together on the Tamiflu campaign and the ALLTrials effort. Yet, Ioannidis’s team has shown what everyone in academia could increasingly observe in the Covid pandemic – the BMJ lacked impartiality, and chose to favour one side during the Covid pandemic.

Medical journals aim to share the latest medical knowledge, including research findings. However, with the rise of the internet, they have started to include more news, opinions, and articles that are better suited for a magazine format.

Journals that exhibit polarization and lack impartiality during pandemics fail to represent the available evidence accurately. Despite this, their established reputations grant them significant sway, allowing them to shape doctors’ perspectives, influence academic discourse, and play a crucial role in public policy formulation. This can lead to widespread acceptance of biased viewpoints, ultimately impacting healthcare decisions and responses to health crises.

Open dialogue and exploring diverse perspectives are essential for making informed, impactful decisions. The review of Covid-19 advocacy bias in the BMJ concludes, ‘The BMJ undermined the ability to navigate the complexities of the pandemic issues we faced and chose to champion opinion over evidence.’ By sidelining vital discussions,

Once a bastion of an evidence-based approach, the BMJ journal lost its way. History will judge that the lack of debate was a notable misjudgment.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Covid Bias at the BMJ
by Carl Heneghan at Brownstone Institute – Daily Economics, Policy, Public Health, Society

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