My original complaint about the Exercise for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome review was made at the end of November 2018. Although it was clearly addressed to the Cochrane Board, the Board Co-chairs decided it should be dealt with “in the first instance” by Editor-in-Chief Dr David Tovey. I (and many others) had been in correspondence with Dr Tovey, members of his team, and the Cochrane Library Oversight Committee about this review for many months without a satisfactory response. So this was not a “first instance” of the complaint. Because of the decision to pass the complaint to Dr Tovey again, I decided to submit the complaint to the Charity Commission.
On 19 December Cochrane Chief Executive officer Mark Wilson wrote to me stating that if I wasn’t happy with Dr Tovey’s response which was in preparation, I could ask the Cochrane Board to review the case.
If you are not happy with his response then you can ask the Cochrane Board to review it and the Board will decide if and how that should be done, and any final decision and response related to the complaint.
I was not happy with Dr Tovey’s response of 6 January, and responded at length with the reasons on 18 February. Having received no acknowledgement of my letter, I wrote to the Cochrane Board on 30 April to request a review of the case.
30 April 2019
Dear Cochrane Board
cc Lucie Binder, David Tovey, Martin Burton, Marguerite Koster, Ginny Barbour, Miranda Langendam, Craig Lockwood
According to Mark’s email of 19 December below, if I am not happy with David Tovey’s response to my complaint I can ask you to review it. David’s response and my reply are attached for reference. My letter of 18 February indicates I am not happy with his response. Please will you review the complaint and let me know what you are planning to do?
Yours
Caroline Struthers
From: Mark Wilson <MWilson@cochrane.org>
Sent: 19 December 2018 18:19
To: Caroline Struthers <caroline.struthers@csm.ox.ac.uk>
Cc: Lucie Binder <LBinder@cochrane.org>; David Tovey <DTovey@cochrane.org>; Martin Burton <Martin.Burton@cochrane.nhs.uk>; Marguerite Koster <mkoster@cochrane.org>; Ginny Barbour <ginny.barbour@qut.edu.au>; Fergus Macbeth <Fergus.Macbeth@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Complaint about Cochrane Review of Exercise for CFS review
Dear Caroline,
I’m disappointed that you saw fit almost immediately on receipt of my email of 17th December – and before you had received the response to your complaint from the Editor in Chief – to publish tweets attacking Cochrane for the Co-Chairs’ decision that the complaint should be dealt with in the first instance by the Editor in Chief, and to announce through that medium that you’ve submitted a complaint to the UK Charity Commission.
Nevertheless, I am writing to inform you that, as promised, he is preparing a response because both “conflict of interest” and “scientific oversight” issues relating to Cochrane Reviews are the responsibility of the Editor in Chief, and he has to be given a formal opportunity to investigate any formal complaint about them. If you are not happy with his response then you can ask the Cochrane Board to review it and the Board will decide if and how that should be done, and any final decision and response related to the complaint.
Yours,
Mark G. Wilson
Chief Executive Officer
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